Transcript
008: Fereshteh Forough of Code to Inspire

Theresa Christine: Welcome to The Wild and Curious Podcast, a show that's part travel,

Suzanne Schmedding: Part feminism, 

TC: And completely inspired by extraordinary women worldwide. I'm Theresa Christine, 

SS:And I'm Suzanne Schmedding.

TC:How was playing Afghan Hero Girl? How did you like it?

SS: Well, I liked it. But I had the same experience that I usually have when I play video games, which is that I am bad at them.

TC: I have watched you play video games and I will agree with that statement. You are bad. When, so there was this one part, pretty early on in the game, where I did get stuck. I was like, 'Wait a second, how am I supposed to get up there?' You have to hit the jump button two times in a row. Did you figure that out? 

SS: Um, no. 

TC: Okay, probably why you got stuck.

SS: I just kept dying, like I would jump on the spikes and there'd be that mean egg-headed person there. And, you know.

TC: The people who jump out of cages and try and shoot you?

SS: Yeah! So, no, I did not get very far. But it was fun. 

TC: Good.

SS: Yeah. 

TC: It reminded me of some games that I've played before, though. But obviously, the coolest part is that you get to play a female character, who is the hero and first of all, you're a girl. Like, that doesn't happen that much in video games, or if it does happen, it's, it's very much, your character is based from a male gaze, you know, you're just like, really fit like, big boobed character

SS: Right! Or, or! You're a female animal. You know, like a, like a walking cat or something.

TC: Yeah, a sexy female cat.

SS: Obviously.

TC: Yeah. 

SS: What other kind of cat is there?

TC: So it's very cool to play a video game and have that be the person and the main character. She's wearing a hijab, which is like, so refreshing to see. 

SS: And the music is beautiful, it's you know, it's traditional, and the visuals are lovely. So I enjoyed it for that. Even if I couldn't beat the game. 

TC: That's okay. 

SS: Yeah. 

TC: Today we're talking with Fereshteh Forough. She is the founder and executive director of Code to Inspire, which is the school that is responsible for making Afghan Hero Girl. Code to Inspire is Afghanistan's first coding school for girls. Since their start in 2015, they have served 200 girls and had 70 graduates.

Fereshteh Forough: Yeah, I think I remember the first day when I went to the class, I was walking into the hall and I was like, hearing someone talking about math. And then I went, the teacher welcomed me and he said, 'There's like five questions on the board. Please solve the questions. So I want to know what's the level of class' And I barely could solve like, I guess the first or the second question. I was very disappointed, very upset, I went home, complained against my parents, they again encouraged me. And then the next day we had introduction to algorithm and problem solving and more kind of like, QBasic data language. And I really loved it. I loved it because first, it was an English and I could follow up the class. But also I liked the creativity and problem solving aspects of it. I always love to figure things out and solve problems. Anything like puzzles or game, and that's how it made me interested. And I think at the end of the story, I had to give up on math and compromise with it and follow my passion with computer science and finally get a master's in computer science as well. 

SS: So you, you started this career and, and from this beginning you started to inspire in 2015. Why did you decide to found Code to Inspire? 

FF: Being born as a refugee, I was denied access and education. And I was going on with the fear either I would go to school or not. So that was certainly something that was a staying with me throughout my whole life. And I was very upset because I think the education is a basic human rights and everyone should access it without any, you know, discrimination. And being a woman in technology, I face a lot of backlashes and threats, because I was very vocal, and I was against all the traditional, you know, beliefs that that women should stay home. And so that, that's, I think, made me to think about what should I do to change the situation, especially for women in technology and help them to be financially empowered and independent?

TC: What is it, like, what is general life like for a female today in Afghanistan? 

FF: Well, I mean, I definitely want to say that like, things have changed a lot compared to when I or my family moved to Afghanistan, you know, we moved early 2002, where that was a country that inherited that four decades of war, the Taliban just left the country. There's certainly a lot of insecurities and problems within different regions. There weren't a lot of, a lot of infrastructure like healthy water, you know, roads and schools, hospitals, there were no sign of a lot of these infrastructures. So it was very difficult at the time. I was a student and living in Herat, you know, to kind of not only be a person living in Afghanistan, but as a woman. However, within these 18 years of the supportive international community and after Afghanistan government and its people, we've seen a lot of changes. It's not black and white. I mean, there's certainly a lot of violence against women, you know, forced marriages, girls being forced to marry in early ages, there's still schools in some areas in Afghanistan with the prison's of Taliban's that are being burned, girls' schools, and the girls are being threatened going to school. So very, very basic things even like the girls go to a coffee shop, you know, to movies together, just laugh out loud outside, you know, be themselves. These are still some of the very basic things that they are being deprived in a lot of areas of Afghanistan. But despite all that, I also can say that there's certainly a lot of progress happening. For example, during the Taliban regime, there were only less than one million students going to school with zero women, and it was all men but now, nearly 7 million children are enrolled in schools, which 2.5 million of them are girls. And also the participation of women in workforce has has been rising since 2001, reaching 19%.

TC: It's wonderful to hear that there is progress being made. And that even though there are still challenges, that you've seen so much growth, even since opening up Code to Inspire. So what kind of opportunities have you found that code to inspire gives women in Afghanistan and gives girls?

FF: Well definitely, the idea of creating Code to Inspire was based on three important pillars. One was to provide a very safe and secure educational environment. That's something that not a lot of girls around Afghanistan have access. And again, because it's a very, still conservative traditional country and community, and family prefer to send their daughters to places where it's only for girls. And then the second we offered a school for free because because it's an extra-curricular activity. Families tend to invest on boys, because they think he's the breadwinner, and in future the girl is going to get married. And you know, there is no financial kind of benefit investing in that. And the third richest, the most important pillar is what kind of skill we should teach this young lady so that when they graduate, um, either they can find job within the community, or we can outsource projects to them from around the world, or they can be entrepreneur and raise funds. We help them and have ideas and hire more women. Um, one of the example was one of our students who join our web development class and she was a 10th grader in high school. She came from a very financial challenging background, family, she never had a phone, even a basic phone, never been online, never had a computer and when we interviewed her and we asked her, 'Why do you want to join the coding school?' She said, 'I want to make money.' And we were like, well, you know, there's nothing wrong with making money, with motivation for you. And so, she joined a class she spend with us the two year after school program, and when she graduated, one day, she texted me and she said, 'When I want to say something, and you cannot believe that. And I went to a company, and of course, they're all men company. And I told them that I can create a website and helps you to get your business online and they accepted it and I'm gonna get paid $200' and I was like, 'Wow, like, that's amazing. You're such a badass because like, you are, you know, like a 12th grade student, still very young, you go and convince a company that are mainly men that I can help your business to grow and that's the first time you get paid. She, actually, was even when she was coming to the school, she even couldn't pay for her community which was less than few cents and we sponsored her and we even gave her a laptop, to take home and work. So she really tried her best to you know, get to the goal that she had. And, and we were very, very fortunate to, to experience and see that with her because the average income monthly salary in Afghanistan is $150, $200. And you do have some students that now make that twice and more than the male family members like a $300, $400. That's what we try to do, make our girls more be financially empowered.

SS: And that seems like such an amazing thing to introduce into families and society. But I, I do understand that that might be a little bit different, especially for a structure that is so patriarchal. So with that in mind, what would you say has been the response to Code to Inspire?

FF: Well, you know, to be honest, when we started it, I was also very afraid, because I was like, I don't know, how would be the community response because you talk about coding, technology, it's still very, you know, like, in case of education, it's not a basic education. But when we started it, we did have a lot of girls who were very passionate, who came. But the majority of them never touched the computer, never been online, didn't have English, you know, didn't know how to speak English properly. So it was very difficult for us. But, we helped a lot of them to, you know, get to the level of the school. I remember that like, after a few months when we started our game design, classical example, and we started posting about some of the games that our girls are making. We did have a lot of the people who come and liked on our Facebook page. Kind of like saying, 'Oh, Girls?' and like, like, 'What is this game?' They want to know at the end of the story, they're gonna get married, and they're gonna, like, make babies and be in the kitchen washing dishes. 

SS: Sounds like a good game! 

FF: And some of those actually comments are coming from affluent you know, well educated men and some of them like computer science major. And I was like, 'Oh my goodness, like, there's a long way ahead to change this perspective.' By the end of the first year, we saw that like, there's a huge shift in the community. There's a lot of people learn more about what does that mean to be a girl in computer science. We received a lot of emails and text messages from either girls around Afghanistan, to ask us if we were able to open the school in their hometown. We also received a lot of calls, text messages, even the brother, father, or the husbands of the girls come to the school to check our students work and some of them were asking, 'My sister want to come to your school. How does that happen?' Like, 'I know like a female relative want to come.' So like, a lot of men actually reached out to us and asked what's the next class, when would be the next class and they want to send their female family members to our school. And certainly recently with the Afghan Hero Girl game

TC: Woo! Suzanne and I have played that!

FF: Of course from the name it's obvious the superhero is a girl, and we created it because the girls were like, 'Oh, like, we're tired of the men being a superhero in the game and we want to create like a girl from Afghanistan to be a superhero.' They created the game and we exposed for Android phone and iOS and we've never expected that much of you know, like, downloads and comments and welcomes. There were like thousands of downloads, hundreds of comments, and a lot of those people who previously were mocking why the girls should make games, are now like, 'Oh, like, I played this level, can you maybe add this?' Now they're like, giving us you know, comments about improving the game so that they play it in a way they want. So there's still only a huge shift we're seeing and not only in the community, but those on the other side, the girls become more confident and, you know, aware about their, you know, their power of, you know, like empowering themselves and the voice that they can have and raise that in the community. 

SS: You've mentioned before that your goal is to spread peace through coding, and it seems like that's something that you are, you know, that's happening even with something like, like Afghan Hero Girl. In what other ways do you feel that coding is going to be spreading peace? 

FF: Well, you know what, I guess like coding is a language, like any other language, and the interesting thing for this language, for me is that it's a language that doesn't have any border. So that's make you a digital citizen of the world. When you become a digital citizen of the world, then you learn how to embrace in differences. And you learn how to work with people in different areas and learn about them. And that's like the key to the piece. Because usually, when we don't want to try to learn about in differences of other countries, or not being open to learn about it, that's how it gives us a different perspective. And unfortunately, sometimes it becomes more violent that like it turns to conflict and war, because coding is a 21st century skill. And again, going back to being a digital citizen of the world, you don't necessarily have to move to write code. You know, if you had a safe place with internet and laptop, you can do a lot of work and also helps you to economically be more empowered. And that's very obvious. Once people are very economically empowered, and they're able to pay their bills, you know, and they're able to like, feel a full, fit life because they're not worrying about it, that there's no time for, you know, going after killing each other because you need money. Investing on coding, especially for women. Instead, investing are their education means investing on the next generation as much as we have, or as many as educated women we have. The next generation would be more educated and more willing towards peace building rather than conflict and war.

TC: There's so much change that you've helped to create for this generation. And then just to think of, you know, 10, 20 years from now, how that's going to affect people is really inspiring. Can you share any of any of the further goals that you have for Code to Inspire?

FF: Yes, absolutely. I think certainly for the next three to five years for us is to scale and grow the organization, especially in Afghanistan at the first step, we are now having only one location, which is in Herat, a city in west of Afghanistan. But as I mentioned earlier, we received a lot of requests to expand our school in other city. So hopefully once we get into a better financial, you know, situation, um, we would love to expand the school within this, other cities in Afghanistan, but my ultimate goal is to make Code to Inspire, it plays for all the women around the world in conflict zone. So we would love to expand the program in other conflict zone, in areas where women are the victim, and I help them with the coding. So it can be any country in Middle East, Central/South Asia, Africa, and Latin America or any place in the world that they, women do suffer because of the conflict and they have to displace or become refugees. That's the ultimate goal for me to help them as much as I can.

SS: I loved talking to her. And I think one of the things that really stood out to me was when she spoke about how coding is this digital language and how being a global citizen with this language that doesn't have any borders is a great way to start a peace and it it made coding kind of romantic, you know, it's a little poetic. 

TC: I've never thought about it in that way. But it is something that transcends cultural barriers, essentially.

SS: Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, it's, I've heard I've heard math and music talked about that way, where it's, you know, it doesn't have a language. It doesn't have any barriers, but we don't, I never thought of coding that way because, you know, I'm not very good at omputers, but it is it's it's the modern music. And I just think it's so incredible what she's doing.

TC: Yeah, giving people that education to speak that language. 

SS: Mm hmm. 

TC: We are in the digital age, and it's only going to become more important to be able to speak that kind of digital language. 

SS: Yes. It makes me think I should take classes. 

TC: You should! You would be great at coding. 

SS: I might! You know what? I just might. 

TC: The other thing that stood out to me, personally, was she's talking about what life is like in Afghanistan, for women, both in the cities and in the rural areas. And I went through many different emotions, hearing her speak. Because there's this part of me that's like, great, it's so wonderful to hear that things are changing. And then there was the part of me that was like, it's so terrible that you know, women can't even go out in public alone or, you know, she's saying just even laughing and you know, having that freedom. So that makes me really angry. But you have to remember like, where a place is coming from the Taliban fell in 2001. 

SS: Yeah. 

TC: And so for them to have come this far, for Fereshteh to have a coding school for girls in Afghanistan, that's extraordinary. That's so, so wonderful.

SS: Yeah, no, she's, she's incredible. The work she's doing is absolutely inspiring and she's changing these women's lives. And if you would like to learn more about Code to Inspire, or you would like to donate head to codetoinspire.org or you can find them on Instagram, their handle is @codetoinspire. 

TC: And if you need help with building a website or creating a new game, you can hire a Code to Inspire graduate through their website. If you enjoy listening to The Wild and Curious Podcast and would like to contribute to helping us make this thing run, you can! You can Venmo us at The Wild and Curious or via PayPal at paypal.me/thewildandcurious. Anything you send, big or small, will go towards the cost of running a podcast that's dismantling the patriarchy.

SS: You can also follow along with our adventures on Instagram. Our handle is @_thewildandcurious_ and we will also put that in the show notes for you.

TC: We are always looking for extraordinary women to talk to on our show. If you have someone in mind or you are that someone go to thewildandcurious.com to let us know.

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