Our team’s top highlights of 2020!

What a year it has been. Despite significant challenges caused by the pandemic, we have joined together as a community and have learnt to adapt, connect, grow, and share our experiences in brand new ways. 

We are incredibly proud of everyone in our community for your positivity, resilience, and commitment to safety this year. Whatever stage you and your Dojo are at, we would like to thank you for your efforts — however big or small. 

Looking back on the year

Our poll in September revealed that 35% of Dojos are now running online, in person, or a combination of both; while 19% are planning to restart their sessions either online or in person soon! Some Dojos have remained paused for now — and that’s OK too, we look forward to welcoming you back when the time is right. Since March, we have been sharing resources, guidelines, and webinar content to support the various ways in which Dojos are currently running. In May, we connected CoderDojo accounts with Raspberry Pi accounts, allowing a range of new benefits and features for our community. 

It has also been a great year for new resources and innovative competitions. We ran the Volunteer of the Month campaign earlier this year to recognise the efforts of our community of volunteers — you nominated almost 50 outstanding individuals! An incredible 253 young people from Dojos took part in our very first Coolest Projects online event in June. We shared a learning path resource to help Ninjas progress, as well as two brand new Scratch project pathways. We ran the enormously fun Boo Challenge in October, and received 100 submissions from 18 countries.

Lastly, a personal highlight of ours was CoderDojo’s ninth birthday in July — we can’t wait for the big tenth anniversary in 2021!

Celebrating our community

We asked some of our colleagues about their special highlights and achievements from 2020. Supporting our community and meeting you — remotely! — through online meetups, coding sessions, and coffee chats are the things that featured the most.

My highlight of 2020 was:

Josh

“…seeing our wonderful partners around the world come together to help each other during such a challenging time. Seeing the strength and dedication for our shared mission was inspiring. It went from us at the Foundation hosting meetups to our partners taking over and leading them for the people in their own regions and communities!” — Josh, Community Coordinator

Christina

 

“…connecting with the community via phone calls, emails, and virtual conferences! I have been inspired by community stories and how folks have navigated the challenges of 2020. Thank you!” — Christina, Club Programme Manager, USA

Kevin

“…being able to chat with the leaders of CoderDojo Apex during our community coffee chat call and hearing about their experience running their Dojo since the beginning of lockdown until now. What an inspiring story!” — Kevin, Club Programme Coordinator, USA

Darren

“…seeing the transition of my Dojo to an online format. Moving online wasn’t an easy process, but the fantastic engagement and growth we’ve got from that have been enormously rewarding”. — Darren, Programme Coordinator, Ireland

Vasu

“…the first online CoderDojo meetup. I was overwhelmed with the support I received from the community members in terms of sharing their inspirational stories, spreading the word about the meetup and connecting with each other beyond the meetup! The real purpose of connecting people was met”. — Vasu, Club Programme Coordinator, India

Helen

“…joining the CoderDojo team, getting to know the wider community and their incredible passion for the ethos of CoderDojo”. — Helen, Administrator

 

Sonja

“…experiencing the process of learning with all its ups and downs. I was pushed out of my comfort zone, but I also got creative, I collaborated with my teams, and I picked myself up after getting knocked down. The result may not be perfection but it’s pretty brilliant and I’m very proud to be a part of this ingenious community”. — Sonja, Senior Community Manager

Over to you

What has been your highlight from the past year? It might have been attending an interesting virtual conference, learning to host your Dojo online, a great coding course, or helping a Ninja to achieve something new. Share your highlights on social media using the hashtag #CoderDojoStories.

We’d like to wish everyone in our community a happy holiday and a safe transition into 2021.

Looking forward to supporting you next year!

Amy 🙂

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