Community Heroes: Why I teach kids coding for free, despite being told I’m ‘too young’

Some of my friends said that there was no way I can start a ground-up initiative.
This was when I told them about starting Kids Learn Code at 13, while studying full-time in secondary school.
However, I wanted to challenge myself and leave my comfort zone while making a positive difference to an emerging need — learning to code.
In Singapore, coding lessons, widely acknowledged as the next big thing, are very pricey. Lessons can cost a few hundred dollars, which makes it challenging for most students to attend.
Thus, my friends and I came together in mid-2022 to start Kids Learn Code, with around 11 of us in the core team.
This ground-up initiative aims to teach the basics of programming, while encouraging creativity and collaboration among participants in an engaging manner, especially those from less-than-ideal backgrounds.
As students ourselves, we believe we can understand what engages participants and what doesn’t.
Our workshops are free and the content is specially designed to boost engagement. 
For example, we include gamification, role-playing and even hackathons, where participants may apply their knowledge in a fun way.
It took us around five months to prepare the resources and be equipped with the facilitation skills for our first workshop held in November of 2022.
This workshop saw 14 registrants aged seven to 12. We wanted to start with a small number, so that we would be able to give specific feedback to each participant and ensure that they understood the topic.
The happiness and satisfaction the participants showed after they completed their first project was motivating, which encouraged us to then organise virtual workshops yearly.
However, my team and I faced many challenges. When we started reaching out to potential partners, we were turned down by not one, not two, but many organisations.
A common reason for rejection was us being too young. I recall a session with a potential partner who said, “You all look young. How old are you?” 
After we answered, the person’s shock and continuous laughter took me aback.
In addition, my team and I have very little time to work on this ground-up initiative since our priority is our studies.
However, my school, the School of Science and Technology, Singapore, believes in giving students the space to explore. My team is grateful for the support and opportunities provided, which helped us overcome our challenges.
Our volunteers also had good time-management skills, which allowed us to do much more.
Support from our parents and the Active Citizenship Education’s committee teachers and mentors at our school help make our workshops successful.
They provide us with the necessary resources and advice when we need it, from vetting documents to offering feedback on whether we should proceed with an initiative.
Fast forward to 2024, we now work with various primary schools and organisations in Singapore to hold multiple workshops.
We hold online workshops, which are open to the public, at least once a year during the end-of-year school holidays.
Face-to-face workshops, on the other hand, are subject to our partners’ requirements and needs, so we try to conduct as many as our schedule permits every year.
Our most outstanding achievement so far is having successfully conducted a six-session workshop with Anderson Primary School in 2023.
We coached 74 participants on Scratch programming, a popular block-based programming language used for beginners new to programming. 
I am very grateful to Anderson Primary School for its support in agreeing to collaborate, which allowed my team to learn many new skills while giving back.
Since our establishment, we have had more than 120 volunteers take part in our workshops.
Collectively, they have clocked more than 1,000 hours running workshops and discussions.
In addition, we have worked with close to 140 workshop participants from more than three overseas locations, including Canada and Hong Kong.
Moving forward, we hope to work with more like-minded organisations to run workshops.
In addition, we are also looking at creating an online self-directed course, where more students can join and pick up relevant skills at their own pace.
For those who are interested in starting ground-up initiatives, I wholeheartedly support you. Here is some advice from my experience.
Do follow your passion and clarify what you wish to achieve.
Do something you are passionate about, with your good friends and partners. The shared inputs from my team — with contributions that I often overlooked myself — have been useful in terms of securing partnerships and curating quality resources.
Starting a project like this can be stressful at times, but what keeps you going will be the shared memories and the connections with your team.
Lastly, stay resilient and don’t give up. While running this project, I occasionally felt like stopping it and giving up. However, the satisfaction and happiness that your beneficiaries will gain from your initiative is priceless and will be your push factor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ang Liang Tze, 14, is the founder of Kids Learn Code and studies full-time at the School of Science and Technology, Singapore. He is passionate about photography and likes reading books in the business and self-help collections during his free time.
Kids Learn Code is supported by BAGUS Together, an initiative that helps changemakers and ground-ups start and sustain their work.
If you have an experience to share or know someone who wishes to contribute to this series, write to voices [at] mediacorp.com.sg with your full name, address and phone number.