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32 000 Youth Coded for Mandela

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From a handful of learners in 2018 in Gqeberha to a massive 32 000 young people from across Africa and Southeast Asia in 2024; this is the incredible growth that the #Coding4Mandela movement has shown in the last few years.

The annual event hosted by Tangible Africa on Mandela Day reached 6 000 youth in 2022, and in 2023 a total of 16 000 young people coded simultaneously on Mandela Day (July 18).

With the 2024 figures tallied up this week from participating sites in countries including Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Indonesia and all the provinces in South Africa, the challenge set by Tangible Africa Founder and Head of the Department and Associate Professor at the Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences Department, Prof Jean Greyling, to reach 30 000 youth was officially exceeded.

“I challenged the team to reach 30 000 youth with the #Coding4Mandela event in honour of 30 years of democracy in South Africa. I am happy to announce that we conservatively reached 32 000 young people, and this is all thanks to the team who worked hard to make it happen,” said Greyling.

Tangible Africa is an engagement project of Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences Department and the Leva Foundation, headquartered in Gqeberha. Very little online resources are needed to play their coding games, RANGERS, BOATS and TANKS to encourage the development of 21 st century skills by learning through play.

“Our vision is to make the #Coding4Mandela movement an annual, national event in South Africa. Some of the participating schools this year had all the learners from their entire school participate in various coding activities including the RANGERS game. A popular activity was a song and dance, with more than 70 schools and organisations sending videos of the #Coding4Mandela dance,” said Greyling.

Madiba Jive a huge hit

With teachers, learners of all ages, parents and even some police officers joining in on the fun, the #Coding4Mandela song and dance were performed across the continent – from dusty roads, school halls and classrooms – with a marimba band forming part of the festivities at one school.

At Voorpos Primary School in East London the school choir performed the ‘Madiba Jive’ along with their marimbas, according to Voorpos Primary School Head of Coding and Robotics and Culture, Tilana Fourie.

“This was a first for our school and learners because of constraints such as lack of funding and resources regarding Coding and Robotics. Our school took the opportunity to set new grounds in our educational approach. The positive response from students and staff has been mind-blowing and we feel encouraged to take more steps into this field. The biggest highlight was celebrating equality; even though we are not as advanced as most school, and we are facing barriers and constraints to fully launch this project, we made sure learners could participate in the simplest ways, creating our own resources and giving almost 800 learners an opportunity during 6 hours/ 360 minutes/ 21 600 seconds of #Coding4Mandela,” said Fourie.

New leaders emerged

The Mandela Day event also ignited leadership skills in many learners, including Cwenga Yose from Nyanga High School in Ngcobo in the Eastern Cape. Arriving even before the Tangible Africa Regional Facilitator, Sibongiseni Makeleni, this young grade 8-learner was captain of his coding group who took first and second place in the Mandela Day tournament at his school.

“This learner discovered his love for leadership. I was astonished to hear that it was him who was organising the learners for coding. We arrived by 07:30 at Nyanga High School and I saw him moving from one teacher to another and he was preparing the venue with his team,” reports Makeleni.

Partners from Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique also reported great success at their events with five schools competing at Soroti University in Uganda. “The Coding4Mandela tournament was monumental not only to the schools and learners, but to parents as well as they witnessed their sons and daughters critically and brilliantly tackling challenging levels with ease, having fun all through. Many parents and teachers were inspired and ready to support their children,” said Abdallah Aziiz, a Tangible Africa Facilitator in Uganda.

The anchor sponsors for the #Coding4Mandela event were AWSinCommunities and Dutoit, with an assortment of different sponsors at the various coding sites.

This week 11&1 Managing Director Sean Sampson announced the winners of Dutoits’ Juicy Gems Competition, a competition hosted in partnership with Tangible Africa where #Coding4Mandela participants could win R30 000 worth of prizes.

The winning school was West End Primary School in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, with a R10 000 cash prize, and the winner of the laptop was Bukho Dladla from LEAP Science and Maths School in Langa, Cape Town. Another school was randomly chosen in a lucky draw of participating schools and organisations, which was Manorvlei Primary School in Tzaneen, Limpopo, and this lucky school also received a cash prize of R10 000.

The Mandela Day top teams will compete virtually in the National Dutoit Juicy Gems #Coding4Mandela competition in September, whereafter the five top teams will be selected to participate in the virtual World Coding Championships hosted in December.

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