A 7000-km trip for a look inside the thriving Code Club community in Telangana, India

Telangana is a state in south-central India where you’ll find a thriving Code Club community, with over 1000 clubs. This is a result of a partnership between the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TGSWREIS). 

As part of our partnership with TGSWREIS, we’ve provided training for Code Club mentors to help them set up clubs and have the skills and confidence to run them successfully.

To discover how effective the training has been, in March 2025, some of our colleagues in India went on a field trip to visit 185 Code Clubs across 33 districts of Telangana — a total journey of 7275 km!

Creators exploring our Scratch project ‘Space talk’ 

Code Clubs in Telangana are often run in residential schools. These schools are mostly in rural, agricultural villages with limited urban development so many of the clubs were accessible only by motorbike. But it was worth the ride to meet the inspirational mentors and creators there and learn more about how Code Clubs are running in these areas.

“After almost a month of training, I was excited to see these clubs in action and discover the usefulness of the sessions we did. We created resources keeping a few assumptions in mind, and I was keen to see whether those assumptions provide mentors with the right level of support to run their clubs confidently.”

– Suraj, Code Club training coordinator

Training teachers to upskill and run a Code Club 

Raspberry Pi Foundation trainers have run many sessions over the last six months with teachers in Telangana. For example, computer science teachers were invited to the Coding Academy Moinabad in Hyderabad, where they showed us how keen they are to develop their skills in Scratch, Python, and web development. These leaders were excited to learn!

In addition, 1000 teachers joined us in December and January for our in-person ‘Prepare to run a Code Club’ training session, where they learnt how to set up and run a Code Club and the free resources and support available to them.

“The Code Club training I attended at Moinabad was one of the best experiences I have ever had. The facilitators made us extremely comfortable and we were able to keep an open mind throughout. We were going to learn new concepts, but the detailed, step-by-step training worked well!” 

– K. Revathi, Code Club educator

Mentors being trained at Moinabad 

Taking a field trip to assess the training

After providing the training to upskill mentors and encourage them to start Code Clubs across Telangana, the team set out on a field trip to visit clubs, offer support, meet young creators, and learn about the impact these clubs are having, as well as the challenges they face. 

It was clear from the first clubs they visited that, despite limited resources like shared laptops (often the ratio is 1:3) and inconsistent internet or power with no backup, the atmosphere in these clubs is vibrant!

What we learnt from our travels

Combining online and offline learning

Within Telangana clubs, young people will often work offline on Scratch resources and our online project pathways, creating animations and adapting them according to their interests and adding cultural elements.

Online activities like building web pages also gave creators a chance to personalise their projects — showcasing their school or sharing meaningful information in ways that reflected their own voice.

A HTML poster created at a Code Club

We learnt that creators grasped coding concepts and followed briefs effectively, even with limited resources and in schools with no resources at all. We were impressed with their resourcefulness and how they adapted online resources to offline.

We’re now working on more unplugged projects to help leaders, mentors, and creators continue to learn and thrive in environments with fewer available resources. Watch this space!

Personalising projects for real-world impact 

A big element that we encourage across the whole of the Code Club community is that we want to support creators to make projects that matter to them. When we see this first-hand, we are truly inspired. 

During our field trip, we saw young people using their coding skills to address local issues and offer potential solutions to water management, crop health, and gender equality. 

“I never thought that our computer lab would be used. Now I can also design things which are useful for me and my community. I always used to watch these things on YouTube and now I get a chance to MAKE it. I am very happy that I got a chance to be part of Code Club.” – Sagar, Code Club student mentor

Building life skills and confidence

These clubs in Telangana are bridging the digital divide by providing essential skills — both digital and wider life skills — to more rural communities.

We noted that peer learning is emphasised, fostering collaboration and shared discovery, and allowing young people to experiment and build teamwork skills.

Exploring code together

It was also encouraging to hear that in the short time these Code Clubs have been running, mentors are seeing how they are significantly improving logical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and digital literacy among young people. Mentors told us that they’re helping to boost young people’s confidence and show them the future opportunities available in STEM fields.

“Many of our students had never used a computer before this Code Club. With the right support and resources, they are now exploring, learning, and even creating on their own. Bridging the digital divide is not just about technology — it’s about giving every child a fair chance to succeed.” – Sridhar, Teacher

What’s next?

The inspiring encounters with amazing mentors and young creators in Telangana’s vibrant Code Clubs reinforced that this partnership is about more than just code — it’s about unlocking potential and building brighter futures, one project at a time.

Returning to our desks, we’re now focused on translating these insights into better support for rural clubs through improved online/offline resources, skill-building videos, confidence-boosting training for leaders, and readily available technical help.

Do you wish to start a Code Club in India? Reach out to Vasu, our National Community Manager at: india@raspberrypi.org