16-Year-Old From Jaipur Teaches Coding Skills To HIV-Positive Kids Through An NGO

A teenager from India is attempting to equip HIV-positive kids with the technical skills to become independent.

Started by 16-year-old Rakshit Kaushik when he was in 9th grade, "Tech Sahayata" was born as an idea "to bridge the gap between the requirements of the technology industry and the underprivileged" who wish to be part of the industry but simply lack access to resources and rudimentary skillsets to meet their goals.

Rakshit Kaushik (extreme right) with the kids he taught

Project Rays

Tech Sahayata's umbrella has birthed a series of initiatives including "Project Rays" - a three-month long project in Jaipur, Rajasthan wherein Rakshit Kaushik taught 18 underprivileged HIV-positive kids the basics of programming and a lot more.

"While researching whom this initiative would impact the most, I found that it would be best to target communities with no access to such technical knowledge," Kaushik told Indiatimes.

Rakshit Kaushik (on the right)

According to Kaushik, when the programme began, only 8% of those kids wanted to pursue programming as a career. By the time the Project Rays was ending, over 80% of the students wanted to build a career in programming. "The majority of those who suffer from the disease are judged solely because they are sick, and mostly they have no role in acquiring it. Due to this, they are not able to find jobs and resources," Kaushik said.

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Access to the right tech was a hindrance in Kaushik's goals for the kids. To overcome this, he fundraised and "bought technical equipment so that students could practice their learnings and enhance their skills."

Rakshit Kaushik with underprivileged HIV+ kids

The impact of teaching HIV+ kids

The impact of Kaushik's work with HIV-positive kids has inspired them to kickstart their own initiatives. "Through our regular mentoring sessions, I support and motivate the students to create their own projects; currently, one of the teams led by Ghanshyam (our student) is working on developing a website on stigmas around HIV where they would share their own stories and experiences and essential research on HIV to communicate their thoughts with the world."

With help from a Jaipur-based NGO, Kaushik taught 18 students programming through "block-coding tool scratch and then helped interested students learn python." In total, he worked with the students for over 60 hours, including main classes and extra sessions to clear doubts.

Rakshit Kaushik with underprivileged HIV+ kids

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"After that, I took lessons on data types, Scratch UI, variables, and syntax. Then I explained various block types available on Scratch, with a diverse set of real-life examples to explain each concept. Students were also given ample projects to practice," he told us.

The programme ended with presentations by HIV-positive students to ensure they can "make their code as efficient as possible" while learning how to effectively ideate and implement ideas with help from Rakshit Kaushik. "After the scratch culmination, we started teaching our python and web development courses to the interested students so that they could learn industry-level tech skills, helping them shape their lives."

Rakshit Kaushik with underprivileged HIV+ kids

"I wanted programming to appeal simply and creatively. So I decided to make our content for teaching programming in basic English and Hindi, which students with no prior experience in programming could easily understand," Kaushik told us while adding that his own lessons from the time spent with underprivileged kids has helped him expand Tech Sahayata to help over 35,000 students across the country.

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