Coding leads refugee high school student to college scholarship

Three years ago, if you’d asked Bonito what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d have said professional soccer player.

When he wasn't at school, the 10th-grader was playing soccer and hanging out with his friends. If soccer didn't work out by the time they graduated high school, their families' would likely encourage them to find a job and get married. 

Then Nancy Mwirotsi convinced one of Bonito’s friends to bring a group to Pi515, a United Way-funded education program. On a Saturday morning, in the basement of a church, they learned how to create a basic command that made their computers say 'hello." It wasn't the most exciting lesson, but it was enough to make Bonito return. 

“I was just excited because I saw people who looked like me who were doing programming things,” Bonito says. “I never really saw people before who were doing that, so I was like, ‘Huh, if they’re doing it, I can do it.’”