As one of the few women working in Afghanistan's small but growing tech sector, Fereshteh Forough wants to give girls' access to the freedom and opportunities that careers in programming can provide -- and she's opened the country's first all-female coding school to help make it happen! After completing her master’s degree in computer science in Berlin, Germany, Forough returned to Afghanistan as a professor of computer science at Herat University. Last year, she founded Code to Inspire and, in its first year, the school taught 50 young women between the ages 15 and 25 programming skills in a free year-long program. And, not only will these graduates have "better chances to find jobs based on their skills," according to Forough, such training also helps raise the status of girls and women in the country at large. "As women earn income and support their families, their communities will gradually realize the value of working women.”

Code to Inspire was such a success after its first year that the school is already planning on expanding to two more cities: Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif. Support from individual donors and companies such as Google, which awarded the group a Rise Award, has made it possible for them to provide the program free of charge to young women regardless of their income level or their family's willingness to invest in a daughter's education. And, this approach is helping them reach more young women and show them new possibilities for their futures. As Forough explains, "When we started recruiting girls in Herat in the fall of 2015, we wanted to show them their value and empower them to break down traditional barriers... Sometimes as an outsider, it can be scary to think about programming and coding. But don’t be afraid of challenges. They make you stronger and give you perspective in life. And once you learn, you will see how coding is so empowering.”

You can learn more and support their work on the Code to Inspire website at http://codetoinspire.org/ -- or read more on News Deeply athttp://bit.ly/25NEP8R - A Mighty Girl