Takhmina – Quality Education with Technology

Takhmina, TechGirl 2020, Tajikistan

A long time ago, I saw my first TED talk video in a chaotic YouTube feed. In that video, the woman talked about happiness and it’s different perceptions. After that, I  wondered what happiness means for me.

As a child, I would say that happiness is to have a lot of chocolate, cartoons, parents, fast Internet, and a powerful laptop. But this summer, on the TechGirls program, I realized that happiness is to do good, help people, and be useful. I wanted to be happy, so I started to do good and help.

My first small step was to open a volunteer club in my city — but due to the global pandemic, it was dangerous to gather everyone in one place. The solution I came up with was to open an online volunteer club. I knew that moving online would be hard, as Tajikistan has a slow and expensive Internet. Despite this, we decided to continue our online sessions. Moreover, we try to provide Internet access to children who cannot afford it and distribute printed materials.

In brief, over the past two months, we have conducted two two-week online training sessions and run the English language, discussion, and tech clubs. In our discussion club, we are trying to find the solution to the problem of a lack of quality education in Tajikistan through technology. In addition, in the tech club, we are learning how to bring our solutions to a feasible form. In this way, I want to ignite the love of technology in the hearts of children and prepare them for the TechGirls program.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to the TechGirls program.  TechGirls opens our eyes to countless opportunities for development and gives us the ability to find them and address them in new ways.