The demand for talented Coders both in Israel and internationally is growing. Providing refugees and asylum-seekers with in-demand career skills will not only ensure that they are eligible for skilled and in-demand jobs but it will also fulfill the growing needs of the job market. It’s a win-win situation.

Our goal is not only to educate our students but to also guide them towards employment and integration in the developer community. Training refugees in Computer Programming significantly increases their chances of achieving sustainable employment opportunities, both in Israel and abroad.

GOALS

MILESTONES

Phase 1: Precourse Assessment

A six-week long pre-course that teaches relevant coding skills and identifies high-potential candidates with the relevant skill-sets, language skills, motivation, and dedication to succeed. These students will then apply to a highly reputable bootcamp and complete the screening process.

Phase 2: Bootcamp

An intensive 3-5 months bootcamp, which will provide refugees and asylum-seekers with the most in-demand knowledge and technical skills that employers look for when hiring for entry level Web Developer roles. Each student will also look to complete an internship in a company and be provided with a personal mentor.

Phase 3: Job Placement

The students will participate in professional development workshops, and be matched with employment opportunities in order to guide them towards employment and integration into the workforce.

Why work with refugees?

There are many reasons for employers to hire refugees and integrate them into the workplace. Refugees and asylum-seekers are often highly qualified and skilled individuals, whose strength and resilience in the face of adversity knows no bounds; making them more than qualified for dealing with the pressures and stresses of high performance work-places. In addition, refugees and asylum-seekers make for motivated and loyal staff since their main concern is to work and provide for themselves and their families.

Therefore, they have higher retention rates since they are keen to hold down long-term, stable jobs, that will provide stability and financial security. It has also been suggested that employers who hire refugees develop better management skills needed to lead a diverse workforce. What’s more, since refugees and asylum-seekers often speak more than one language, they prove an invaluable asset to businesses that operate internationally.

Success stories

Two of the Coding Programs previous participants were hired at Minute.com. One as a Video Editor and the other as a Programmer. Previous participants of The ARDC’s Coding Courses are themselves now teachers of front-end development for asylum- seekers and refugees, and providing professional services, such as building websites.

The ARDC has supported approximately 32 graduates of coding courses or preparatory courses. There are a number of asylum seekers learning coding skills in other schools on their own who we are not directly supporting, but are in touch with.

As a result of these efforts, the desire to learn coding within the community, is substantially increasing. Some of the graduates of these courses are now teaching coding to community members, in their own groups as well.

To date, there are 5 graduates of coding bootcamps, which are geared towards employment opportunities (DI, Le Wagon, Elevation). There is one other person currently completing a bootcamp at Appleseeds.

"I love coding because it really excites me. I am a person who loves to solve problems as well as questions involving logic and thinking ability. Programming is fundamentally about creating solutions to problems. You can create something that can be extremely useful to people and make their life and work easier."

Tesfahalem Geberisus is an Eritrean asylum-seeker and current student of a full stack development bootcamp.

He plans to join the High-Tech Sector after completing the course.