Coding school offers fully funded fellowship during pandemic

A Bronx school dedicated to teaching coding and technology training is now taking another step to help students during the pandemic.

News 12 Staff

Nov 13, 2020, 2:38 PM

Updated 1,428 days ago

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A Bronx school dedicated to teaching coding and technology training is now taking another step to help students during the pandemic.
The Bronx-based The Knowledge House is a nonprofit coding school that launched in 2014 to give low-income adults in the city a chance to start a career in the tech industry.
Now they're making sure the pandemic doesn't hurt those opportunities.
"All of our students are low income; they have access to this program for free but COVID has provided the challenge that now they're extra expenses,’ says Jerelyn Rodriguez, co-founder and CEO of The Knowledge House.
They launched the innovation fellowship to take care of those added expenses. They're offering black and brown students a 12-month fully funded job training program that teaches coding and technology skills and sets students up with a paid internship at the end and provides them with a stipend, textbooks and full access to virtual learning from home.
"We have to make sure that every student has a laptop, has a monitor, we have to make sure that every student has strong Internet access,” says Rodriguez.
The Knowledge House wanted to make sure the financial burden of the pandemic was not an obstacle to their students' success. They've raised over $350,000 of their $500,000 goal with the help of big companies like Robin Hood and Goldman Sachs and current students are thankful.
"It means being supported, it means more economic opportunities it means better wages and ultimately it means more fulfillment in life,” says innovation fellow Chioma Dunkley.
The fellowship also provides access to health and wellness resources and mentorship so that students are fully supported.
The current program has 100 job trainees and they're hoping to have 250 slots next year.