No More Fairy Tales: Video Game Workshop, Rebel Narrative, and Coding for Girls

This is a story of our 2021 Winner in the SDG-5 Category, Girls Do IT: SORORA E.V. from Germany.

Their event: "No More Fairy Tales: Video Game Workshop, Rebel Narrative, and Coding for Girls" made an excellent effort to strengthen women’s self-confidence and resilience. Although it was targeted at young women, it was not a stigmatized female topic, but rather used a feminist approach. Not only were the girls taught coding, but they learned about storytelling and teamwork. 

This poetic coding workshop prepared by Sorora E.V.'s founders: Marcella Villanueva and Barbara Belitz, took its participants on a fantastic journey of unlimited adventure through cyberspace. No legendary knights were, however, required to save the female protagonist here, and no previous knowledge of programming. Through an introduction to creative storytelling and video gaming, migrant girls aged 14 - 24 learnt basic tools for publishing an interactive story in HTML.

The online workshop focused on freeing the imagination for developing creative narratives, playing with the possibilities of hypertext and non-linear stories in which participants could experiment and explore with variables, images, CSS, and JavaScript.

Listen to Marcela Villanueva talking about their event, the Meet and Code experience and what it felt like to be announced the Winner of the Girls Do IT! category for the second year in a row!