Community Story_Marie's

Marie: I don't know nothing about coding. Nothing. Even though I haven't got the experience, it doesn't mean I shouldn't give them the opportunity. My name is Marie Henry and I'm the founder of Breadline London, a community organisation that was set up in 2017 to support families that are struggling with poverty and hardship. We run our coding club from a fabulous community centre in Tottenham called Tottenham Community Sports.

Our Code Club is an opportunity for the children to come and learn about coding language, about making projects, developing skills, knowledge, teamwork, problem-solving skills, and just looking to the future. I wanted coding club for children in Tottenham because that's not something that is actually here and some of our children in this area, they don't get the opportunity to attend things like coding club.

So if I can offer something that will support the children as well as support the families, I'm going to offer it all the time.

Kevin: I've known Marie for the last 10 to 12 years. She approached us with the idea of running a coding club, which we thought was an excellent idea because it's something that we haven't catered for here, and we felt there was a clear need for that in– in this area.

Marie: I always knew regardless of my skills or my knowledge, I wanted to run a coding club for the children. You know, coding will open a lot of doors for education, teacher employment, and even businesses that they might want to start themselves. Having resources that was provided to us by Raspberry Pi Foundation was absolutely amazing, because we don't have a budget to be able to run a coding club, not really.

All of the training days that I attended, the ones that were online and the one I attended in Cambridge, they were just so amazing. To be able to go over there and to start to learn about what I wanted the children to learn was really inspiring. Being a mentor is very interesting because most of the children know more about coding than I do, so sometimes for me, it's just about encouraging them to sort of say, what's next? What else can you add to your project?

Kevin: Marie has so much energy. She's always so positive. She connects well with people locally, with the children, and this area needs that sort of person to encourage people to take part.

Marie: Whether or not you've got skills, start a coding club because the children will help you to run coding club. But don't get put off because you don't know how to code. Because I don't, and I still run a coding club and I love it.