PEOPLE GET READY

Unequal access to digital literacy must end.
We urgently need to find new approaches to living and working.
Snowcastle Valley does this.

Click here to learn why we do this.

We pay our skills forward to help people living below the poverty line
achieve digital literacy and
gain creative skills they need today,
and the rest of the world will need tomorrow.

 
 
 

Problem

Women and teenage girls living in marginalised villages on the coast of Kerala have little to no opportunities for employment. Many of their husbands and fathers have no jobs either. At the same time as living at home in poverty they desperately need to learn new skills to access government services now operating under the Digital India scheme.

They need to find ways of breaking out of a vicious circle that leads nowhere. They need to discover ways of making creative opportunities for themselves.

 
 
 

Solutions

We believe that these women and girls can learn the skills they need, if they receive the encouragement they desire.

We helped establish a collective where women make craftwork on their own terms, with all profits shared equitably. Along with enhanced craft skills, they upgrade their financial abilities, and gain access to online banking services.

We have provided the framework for coding clubs in which teenage girls learn digital skills that will increase their confidence, upgrade their skills, broaden their horizons, and prepare them for a future they will need to embrace. This provides a path for them to claim their places in Digital India.

We also offer support to local nursery classes using Scratch Junior on Android tablets because we believe that learning digital skills from an early age increases a child's life opportunities.

We feel certain that making a change in the poorest communities will provide the starting point for a global solution which benefits us all.

 
 
 

Projects

Snowcastle Valley creates tools to support teenage girls and women in the coastal villages of Kerala in South India.

We use digital creativity and human centred design to find respectful and hopeful ways to a better life for people in communities with otherwise quite narrow future possibilities.

We focus on two projects: DGD Coding and DOP Creative. We are committed to making them antifragile, self-organised and sustainable.

 
 

The Team

 

 

Irma Sippola

irma sippola

Irma Sippola is a Finnish-born project manager from Helsinki currently managing a large nationwide-wide project in Helsinki designed to diminish loneliness, improve well-being, encourage participation through designing an equal access hobby platform for all young people in Helsinki. She has studied educational science, art and design, and commerce.

She has an international mindset and sees problems and solutions in a global rather than local scale. She is extremely motivated to see the impact and change in deprived communities; goals that Snowcastle Valley actively strives for.

She is the cofounder of Snowcastle Valley.

 

 
 

 

Owen Kelly

owen kelly

Owen Kelly grew up on Merseyside, in England. He has worked as a community artist, cultural consultant, digital creator, multimedia programmer, university lecturer and web designer. He has given keynote speeches at conferences on three continents, and currently serves as principal lecturer emeritus at Arcada, a university of applied science in Helsinki, Finland.

He has a doctorate in art education and has published several books including Community, Art & The State, Digital Creativity and Ambient Learning & Self Authorship. In December 2022 Routledge published his latest book, Cultural Democracy Now. He runs a popular website and produces a weekly podcast, Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse, with Sophie Hope, an English academic, activist and artist.

He is the cofounder of Snowcastle Valley.

 

 
 

 

Ansumana Sabally

ansumana sabally

Ansumana Sabally is a Finnish community worker with Gambian roots. He is an active advocate for young people as well as for Gambian community affairs. History, politics and matters related to equality are among his areas of interest, and he is an active community influencer.

He represents young people of multicultural backgrounds by participating in public interviews and panel discussions. Ansumana is a founding member of the Finnish Gambian ry association and has served as a board member for several years.

Ansumana has ambitions to make the world a better and more equal place for all.

He is a board member of Snowcastle Valley.

 

 
 

 

Sahan Raj

Sahan Raj

Sahan Raj comes from a town called Kasaragode in the north the state of Kerala. He works as a manager in a university maker space where he enables students to build their start-up dreams.

At Snowcastle Valley his primary focus was coordinating the pedagogy at the DGD clubs at SISP in Kovalam.

He is an enthusiastic movie fanatic, and keen on writing screenplays for movies.

 

 
 

 

Asha

Asha

Asha is a member of the SISP Social Empowerment Unit. She coordinates the DOP Designing our Power project. She has built a very warm and inspiring team spirit with a jolly atmosphere of creativity and good quality.

 

 
 

 

Simi Sasidharan

Simi Sasidharan

Simi teaches at the SISP School for second chance education.

She coordinates both the DGD and DGD Junior clubs, recruiting and supporting club members and leading weekly sessions that explore what it means to think like a coder.

With her knowledge of the members, their families, and their environment, she provides a vital link between the activities of DGD and the wider community.

 

 
 

 

Farhan Nazeer

Farhan Nazeer

Farhan is a student pursuing his studies in computer science.

He coordinates the DGD clubs at the Subash and Vavvamoola Centres supporting club members and leading weekly sessions that explore what it means to think like a coder. He helps develop and test new projects.

 

 
 

 

Lekshmi Vijayam

Lekshmi Vijayan

Lekshmi first joined DGD as one of the club members in the original SISP group.

She learned very quickly and with great enthusiasm, and soon started helping other members. She has now graduated to a role as tutor for the new students at several DGD clubs, introducing them to coding and leading them through the initial projects.

 

 
 

 

Alifathima S

Alifathima S

Alifathima first joined DGD as one of the members of the Friday club at SISP.

She completed all the current projects with huge enthusiasm and at great speed. She has now graduated to a role as one of the tutors for the members of the Junior DGD clubs, introducing them to the possibilities of Android tablets, and the fundamentals of coding with Scratch Jr.

 

 
 

 

Alifathima S

Riyan N

Riyan N describes himself as "a curious and driven individual
with a passion for learning and growth".

He studies for a B-Tech degree in civil engineering at ACE College of Engineering, Vandithadam, and is a keen gamer
with a longstanding interest in Minecraft.

He coordinates the game testing and coding clubs at
the Subash Centre. He coordinates sessions to help club members progress by thinking like coders.

 

 
 

 

Usaya Kumar

Udaya Kumar

Udaya is a man of many skills. He works as a tailor on Lighthouse Beach during the tourist season and has a variety of other work, from driving to security.

He takes charge of logistics for DGD. He supervises the storage and security of the equipment and ensures that the laptops and tablets are ready for use when they are transported to different DGD clubs.

 

 
 

 

Rajeev

Rajeev

Rajeev is a rickshaw driver in the Kovalam and Vizhinjam areas. The depth of his knowledge of the people and places in the whole Kovalam area is truly remarkable.

He manages the transportation of people and equipment between the growing number of DGD clubs, using his own rickshaw and bringing in other rickshaw drivers as necessary.

 

 
 
 

Partners

Our primary Indian partner is SISP, a non-profit organization working in the coastal region of Thiruvananthapuram, the capitial of India's south-western state of Kerala. S.I.S.P. was founded by two Belgians, Paul Van Gelder and Werner Fynaerts in 1996.

We have also consulted with, and drawn inspiration from, Project Defy, who enable communities around the world to create their own self-learning spaces called Nooks, where each individual can design their own education.

We have received support from Innolux and Marimekko and we currently receive funding from a private foundation in Finland.

 
 
 

 

Contact Information

Irma Sippola
Tel. +358 (0)50 530 5378
irma@snowcastlevalley.org