Dojo members

Who are the people who make up the community of your Dojo? What roles do they play? Read on and find out!

Ninjas

Young people aged 7 to 17 attending the Dojo.

Ninjas are the reason we run CoderDojos!

“When I started to attend the CoderDojo courses one and a half years ago, I only knew how to copy and paste text. Now, I can build websites, and I even experiment with game development. CoderDojo is such an amazing initiative that I even convinced my mother to be involved. Now she is a Dojo champion.”
Daniel, 14, Ninja, Chisinau, Moldova

Mentors

Champions

“Every session of the Dojo is exciting as I see the kids learn with and from each other.”
Garima Singh, Dojo champion, Round Rock, Texas, USA

Youth mentors

“I’m just helping whoever needs help, I guess, and just fooling around!”
Lucy, youth mentor, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland

Other volunteers

People helping out with the Dojo without taking on a champion or mentor role.

Champions and mentors are volunteers, and so are people who support the Dojo by helping out with ticketing, setting up Dojo sessions or tidying up afterwards, running social media, or anything else needed to make the Dojo happen!

Parents and guardians

Most Dojos either encourage or require parents or guardians to stay for the Dojo session rather than only dropping their children off and picking them up. This is particularly true for parents or guardians of younger Ninjas, i.e. those under 13. Parents and guardians can be extremely helpful in case Ninjas forget a password or need an email address or website account as part of a project.

Since they’re often at the Dojo anyway, parents and guardians are a great source of potential volunteers, mentors, and champions. As CoderDojo co-founder Bill Liao says, “CoderDojo is free, but it’s not a free ride!”

Do you have any mentors or volunteers recruited for your Dojo already? Where might you find them? Let us know in the comments!