What is Scratch?

Scratch is a visual programming language targeting kids. With Scratch, children can code their own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share their creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge. For more information about Scratch click HERE.

Scratch Resources

The MIT Media Lab Team provides a lot of online training materials and resources to help kids quickly learn how to use Scratch. One of the most useful resources is the Creative Computing Curriculum Guide. However, this guide, like other resources, is mainly developed only in English but the MIT Media Lab team encourages others to translate this material into other languages as well.

Today, this Guide is translated into many languages, i.e., French, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, and others. Our goal is to add Arabic to this list and help Arabic speaking kids take advantage of this technology.

The Campaign GOAL

Our goal is to introduce an Arabic version of Scratch's Programming Curriculum to help Arabic speaking kids better understand and use the Scratch coding platform. By the end of this project, the Arabic version curriculum will be uploaded onto the Scratch website and available to the public.

What We Need & What You Get

Our estimated cost for this project is $4,000. The cost breakdown:

1. The translation is needed for the Creative Computing Curriculum Guide which costs $2,000.
2. Professional graphic design for the Curriculum Guide which costs around $1,500.
3. Other costs are estimated at $500.

The Impact

Preparing kids with the necessary tools to be a productive part of society will help ensure a brighter future for them and the entire human race. In today's society, it is essential for everyone to have programming and development skills. This project targets preparing kids and enhance their skills in three main aspects:

1. Future career: The demand for well-skilled computer programmers is increasing every day and technology is becoming essential for every field. Having basic programming skills will help kids prepare more for future jobs.
2. Problem-solving and logical thinking: Scratch aims to helps develop problem-solving and logical thinking skills in kids to help develop solutions for future problems.
3. Academic advantages: Programming challenges kids math and logical skills and helps them, by applying and practicing, transcend their school learnings. It also helps kids enhance their teamwork abilities and learn how to break any social barriers.

The UN shows that there are over 180 million Arabic speaking kids in the world (UN, 2017). Be part of our mission by donating, spreading the word, and working together to prepare the young generation of today for the challenges of tomorrows.

People behind the campaign

• Abubakr Mustafa Ibrahim is an Electronics Engineer and a fan of the use of technology in education. Currently doing his master’s of IDD&E at Syracuse University, USA.
• Adil Siraj is a Cloud Solution Architect design and deployment of AWS/Azure/Google Cloud Platforms. Also a specialist on Big Data & Hadoop/Cloudera/Hortonworks. Volunteers by Conducting periodic courses of AWS, Cloud Computing, and Big Data in Muslim Community Centers in Dallas, Texas.
• Hamid Mohammed is an Electrical Engineering graduate who has a great passion for computer science and programming. Currently doing his master’s degree in Computer at Uppsala University, Sweden.
• Hassan Mustafa Ibrahim is enthusiastic about programming and math. Has just started his B.Sc. of Computer and Statistics, University of Khartoum, Sudan.
• Hisham Ahmed Ali is an Assistant Professor of Electronic Engineering and IT consultant. Has great enthusiasm to foster and improve STEM education. Also a Scratch teaching volunteer.
• Mohamed Basher is a Systems Engineer who is interested in Cloud Computing and Programming. Currently doing Master of Information Technology at Umeå University, Sweden.
• Mohammed Saeed Elhussein is a UI/UX developer with a master in applied computer science. Passionate about great user experience and enjoys learning and teaching new technologies. Currently working for Ascend learning.
• Wyle Elbadawi is a telecom engineer with a master in Electrical & Computer Engineering. Interested in networks engineering and cloud solutions. Also passionate about e-learning and leading efforts to spread education in Sudan.
• Yusra Osman is an Electronics Engineer, passionate about technology projects that help the community. Also, volunteers to teach Scratch to kids in Sudan.