Here at the Firehose Project, we’re extremely proud to officially announce that we’ve become the premier education partner for Refugees on Rails, a volunteer-led, international organization that helps teach refugees how to code. As part of the partnership, we’re offering our Ruby on Rails curriculum to their awesome network of volunteers and students.

We’ve always had a passion for teaching our craft to people passionate about learning cutting edge technology. Ultimately, it’s all about creating new opportunities for people who want to change their lives and deserve the chance to do so.

Refugees on Rails shares that vision. They aim to help refugees build their qualification as software developers, and they provide them with valuable skills to improve their chances of landing a job in a tough market. To support that initiative, they offer laptops, technical courses (like ours) and workshops.

This is an amazing piece of a solution to a very complicated problem. Asylum seekers can face an extremely long waiting period before being permitted to apply for jobs in their new country. Some can wait more than 10 months and still be left in limbo. By learning programming skills during their wait, they can put themselves in a much better position to a get a job or start their own business.

Fueling Integration

And while job placement is key, the end goal is something bigger. It’s really about integration.

The education process creates a common, shared experience for refugees and locals. It breaks down barriers and paves the way to lasting relationships built upon learning. What could be more important than that?

Expanding The Movement

Similar to Firehose, Refugees on Rails was founded by a couple of close friends. Co-founders Weston Hankins, Anne Kjaer, and Ahmet Emre Acar recognized the power of technical education to aid refugee integration in Europe. They launched the organization in 2015 as a grassroots movement in Berlin to teach refugees how to code. 

As detailed in a Forbes article highlighting the organization, there is a high demand for developers in Berlin’s startup ecosystem. Refugees on Rails trained 50 students during their initial launch, and will be starting up another class in the German capital in the near future.

Since the launch, they have since expanded to Cologne, Amsterdam and Munich. You can check out some great photos of their pilot workshop in Munich below:

By coming together with Refugees on Rails, we can provide more refugees with a better opportunity to integrate and flourish in a new society. We couldn’t be more excited to lend our energy to such an amazing initiative.

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