This summer I worked as a Leadership Curriculum Advisor with Re:Coded. Specifically, I helped to refine the current soft skills programming, and develop not only new courses, but create a standard soft skills curriculum to be utilized across all Re:Coded sites in Turkey, Iraq and Yemen. As an organization that cares deeply about developing youth for the digital economy, it may, at first glance, appear that Re:Coded is only concerned with developing their participants technology and coding skills; however, they want to develop their participants holistically, so that they can enter the industry as competent leaders and entrepreneurs. Thus, my work was supportive in helping them to realize this holistic development. The curriculum I designed centered on three units: professional development; growth mindset, creativity, and curiosity; and leadership. Within each unit were subsections that focused on developing participants’ ability to learn and think creatively, business etiquette, active listening skills, and self-awareness, just to name a few. Over the five-month bootcamps, the workshops on each skill will be run in order for participants to graduate skilled in technology and soft/life skills. 

Most of the subjects I was generating activities and resources for are ones that I often find myself discussing at both CSSW and my field experiences. For example, one of the courses I designed, and piloted in a workshop, was about active and empathetic listening and this is a skill that I focus on developing often as a social worker and in courses like, Direct Practice. Beyond that, I was able to bring my insights from my first year studies around human behavior and social environments into this role and incorporate them with the ideas that the Re:Coded team had to offer. I was able to pilot five workshops around the curriculum in Erbil and Gaziantep which helped me practice, not only my own public speaking and presentation skills, but also refining curriculum effectively. My first year at CSSW certainly increased my confidence in presenting on these soft skills and teaching me how to be even more sensitive to different cultures and contexts in its development stages.

That being said, I think one of the hardest things was figuring out how to structure lessons that were able to fully reflect the country, city, and cultural contexts. Given that I was developing the curriculum while in Istanbul, I had limited access to the participants that were going to be directly impacted by it, aside from my two weeks spent in Erbil and Gaziantep. This meant the curriculum was broader and more generalized than I would have ideally preferred. However, I believe my feedback from participants during my week in Erbil in the middle of the summer was able to be used in the refinement process and further development of lessons. Additionally, I think that whenever you work with an international non-profit, you must always exercise a certain level of flexibility. The timing of my trips was changed at different points during the summer, due to holidays or price of flights, and this meant that planning things in advance was not always an option. However, because the curriculum and presentations were housed online, this meant I could develop the curriculum from anywhere and others could utilize the presentations at the various Re:Coded locations. Overall, for me, this was a reminder that having flexibility leaves you better able to have an impact because you are listening and understanding what is best for the people you are seeking to support while not comprising your own work output.

This experience and my takeaways, although summed up here, cannot fully be captured fully in this short description. I think the quote that will stick with me as I continue to develop as a social worker, ideally in a workforce development setting, was shared with me while in Erbil. It comes from Ali Clare, a Re:Coded Co-Founder, and states, “While talent is universal, opportunity is not.” I think this is something that sounds so simple, yet is most often forgotten. The ability to code, to work in web design, to create algorithms, and so on is not unique to a certain group of people, but utilization and further development of these abilities are not readily offered as an opportunity to everyone. Re:Coded is seeking to solve that issue of opportunity lack in areas that have been deeply affected by conflict. In Erbil, they have created Re:Coded House, a co-working space, to complement their bootcamps, because it was seen to be a need in the area; however, in Istanbul, they will be focusing primarily on bootcamps, because co-working spaces are already available throughout the city. They are listening to the needs of the communities and seeking partners locally and globally to help them achieve their goals. I feel lucky to have learned from such an incredible group of dedicated individuals who have achieved so much in their two operational years alone. I know that the lessons they taught me will have an impact on how I go into workforce and non-profit development work. My work can only be effective if I listen to and learn from the communities I work in. I look forward to how this experience with Re:Coded will inform my final year CSSW as a Social Enterprise Administration student and workforce development intern, and in the years to come.