Low income mothers need all the help they can get when it comes to emerging themselves to high-wage careers in technology. Fortunately, there are non-profit programs that are reaching out to assist them.
Giving back to help women move forward
One helpful program is Techtonica (www.techtonica.org). Techtonica is a non-profit coding bootcamp for women, and they cover more than just web development. Their full-time program is longer than most at six months, it's followed by job placement, and it's specifically for women and non-binary femme adults in need. Companies partner with them to provide mentoring and to formulate student criteria and curriculum..
Another similar program is Path Forward (www.pathforward.org). Path Forward is a non-profit organization on a mission to empower women to restart their careers after time spent focused on caregiving. They fulfill this mission by working with companies to create midcareer internships - sometimes called “returnships” - to give women a jump start back to the paid workforce.
More than 50 women have participated in Path Forward programs and of those, 80% were hired by the companies where they interned and 90% are now employed.
Combating discrimination
In addition to having low income, gender discrimination in the tech industry also makes it difficult for underrepresented people like women to break into tech careers. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, only 36 percent of the people employed in the tech industry in 2014 were women.
Techtonica and Path Forward are just two programs that can give low-income women a chance for a high tech career!
