It鈥檚 not easy navigating a new home. For the recent influx of refugees from war-torn Syria, it can be challenging to crack the 鈥渃odes鈥� of working and living in a new country.
But computer code is a universal language 鈥斅爋ne many are eager to learn.
Last week, more than 30 Syrian newcomers to Canada and Halifax spent five afternoons on campus, learning HTML, CSS and Javascript to help expand their computer skill sets.聽 The camp was hosted jointly by the AV俱乐部 Computer Science (CS) Society and Syrian Student Society, and offered free of charge to participants.
Yaser Alkayale, a third-year Dal CS student from Syria who put the curriculum together, says one of their goals was to invite refugees who may feel uncertain about their place in the school system, and expose them to a taste of what computer science has to offer.
鈥淲e gave them some lectures, some lab work, some guest lectures, a little bit of a tutorial 鈥斅燼s close to the full university experience as we could in that time,鈥� he explains. 鈥淵es, they learned website creation, but what we hope they really learned was that computer science is cool, it鈥檚 a big field with lots of opportunity and it鈥檚 great to study at AV俱乐部.鈥�
Expanding opportunities 聽
The camp was open to individuals hoping to get into university sometime in the near future, and attracted students ranging in age from 12 to 50.
鈥淲e wanted to introduce them to the university and what courses in computer science would be like,鈥� adds Zaher Abd Ulmoula, a member of the Syrian Student Society who鈥檚 new to Halifax himself. (He鈥檚 starting a master鈥檚 in Computer Science this fall.) 鈥淢any of them didn鈥檛 know anything about coding or programming languages.鈥�
Helping organize the camp was doubly valuable for Zaher, given it was his first time getting exposed to a Canadian classroom experience.
鈥淚 learned a lot about the teaching at AV俱乐部,鈥� says Zaher, also from Syria. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very different from my country when I got my degree there [in IT Engineering]. It鈥檚 good to know about that.鈥�
The inspiration for the camp came from Computer Science Dean, Andrew Rau-Chaplin, who suggested the idea to Yaser and also donated funds from the Faculty to support it.
鈥淚 actually took the curriculum for one of the courses we have in the Faculty 鈥� the introduction to website creation 鈥� and I just jammed it all into one week instead of three months,鈥� says Yaser. 鈥淎 lot of parts were taken out, but they were able to come up with something that was close to what they would have come up with had they taken the course at AV俱乐部.鈥�
Making a difference
Yaser says the students have gotten great feedback from participants, with many positive posts and thanks on their . Going forward, they鈥檙e discussing ways to continue the camp as a once-weekly session, provided they can find the funding and support to do so.
鈥淲e鈥檇 love to expand on it in the future,鈥� says Yaser.
Camp organizers and participants.