This month, Hopeworks Web Associate Hien Nguyen began giving back to the community with her new skills by volunteering with Girl Develop It’s Up Program to teach web development to incarcerated women! Hien is a teaching assistant in the program while their Hopeworks supervisor and Web Director, Billimarie Lubiano Robinson, is teaching coding in the UP Program.
UP - Unlocking Potential of Underserved Women - began as a pilot program in December 2017 with funding from Capital One and Barclays. For the past year, GDI’s UP Program team has been going into Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution (BWCI) in New Castle, DE to teach beginner web development classes.
With limited access to relevant professional development, incarcerated women have the most to gain from learning 21st-century skills, especially web development, in order to provide them with more opportunities when they reenter society and the workforce. This innovative program was established to assist incarcerated women to: increase knowledge and awareness of technology, acquire coding and web development skills, enhance self-efficacy; and build confidence, hope, and an openness to try new things.
GDI believes that “teaching incarcerated women is fully aligned with our mission to provide accessible and judgment-free opportunities for diverse women from all backgrounds interested in learning web and software development...Among women prisoners, research shows that the rates of recidivism are high. Our goal is to support the students who return to society by welcoming them into our nearby communities to help them continue their learning and to get involved in a network they wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.”
Hopeworks is so proud the Web team and their desire to help others take control of their futures.
Learn more about this program on this GDI blog post from their first cohort in 2017.
This month, our partners showed up in a big way to support our young professionals! Aramark Career Exploration DayOur young adults visited Aramark’s Philadelphia HQ for an exciting day of career discovery. From industry panels to hands-on workshops, they gained real-world insights into IT, innovation, and hospitality—and some were already eyeing job openings before the […]
We’re thrilled to announce that tickets are officially on sale for the Hopeworks 25th Anniversary Reception—a special evening honoring the young adults, partners, and community members who have shaped our journey. September 25, 2025Collingswood Ballroom, Collingswood, NJPurchase Tickets Now » This milestone event will include a cocktail reception, awards dinner, and powerful storytelling from the Hopeworks […]
Building a top-performing RCM team from scratch is no easy task, but it's exactly what Pecola King, Hopeworks’ Director of Revenue Cycle Management, has done again and again. When Pecola relocated to Arkansas, she inherited a team with zero billing experience. Within one quarter, she transformed that team into the top-performing RCM unit - hitting every KPI and setting […]
