Circle Officers Travel to Vital Voices Event in Washington, DC

On Tuesday, April 12th, Circle of Women officers Alexandra Douwes, Jennifer Keeley and Janelle Morris attended the 10th annual Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards at The John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The event honors and celebrates women's leadership around the world recognizing women who are social entrepreneurs, political representatives, businesswomen, human rights defenders and civil society advocates. Vital Voices Founder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the event to honor Fatema Akbari, an entrepreneur from Afghanistan who provides job training for women; Liron Peleg-Hadomi and Noha Khatieb two peace activists from Israel -- one Arab, one Jewish; Sunitha Krishnan, a rescuer of trafficked women and girls in India; Kah Walla, a presidential candidate from Cameroon and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the democracy movement in Burma. Speakers included U.S. foreign policy. Melanne Verveer, the co-founder of Vital Voices, who is leading as our Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues in addition to Tina Brown, Sally Field, Cokie Roberts, Michele Norris, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Wolf Blitzer, and Diane von Furstenberg.

The event was incredible and hearing each woman speak about her story was inspiring. These are truly remarkable women who have faced obstacles that are hard to even imagine but their optimism and determination reminds us how important our mission is to empower and educate women and girls around the world. By investing in women and girls, we are supporting the movement to create a more peaceful and prosperous world.

For more information about the event and video of the phenominal speakers, please visit:
http://www.vitalvoices.org/global-initiatives/global-leadership-awards

THREAD Film Screening and Panel Discussion

On April 7th, 2011, Princeton Circle of Women, along with BPeace and the Liechtenstein Institute of Self Determination, presented a screening of the documentary THREAD.  This movie follows the journey of five Afghan businesswomen as they travel to the United States with the non-profit organization BPeace (Business Council for Peace). In the United States, the women learn practical business skills that they can take back to Afghanistan to help their businesses flourish. The film captures the heartbreaking lows and the triumphant highs of these women as they strive to help their country, which has been devastated by war and where women have very few rights. After the movie, we had a panel discussion with the CEO and co-founder of BPeace Toni Maloney, the director of THREAD Laurie Chock, and the producer of the movie Dana Kuznetzkoff. These amazing women were gracious enough to answer all of our questions and stayed for a dessert reception following the discussion. We were so honored to have them on Princeton's campus and appreciate all the support we received from the Liechtenstein Institute of Self Determination and BPeace. Here are some pictures from the event in case you missed it:

Circle of Women's venture 'Skywater' takes 1st place in Princeton Green Business Plan Competition

On Saturday, February 26th, Circle of Women's sustainability venture 'Skywater' was awarded 1st place in the Princeton Green Business Plan Competition and recieved $7,600 in start-up funds. The Skywater team includes Alexandra Douwes '11, Jennifer Keeley '11, Kait Mauritz '11, Janelle Morris '11, and Genevieve Ryan '11.

In addition to Circle of Women's mission to build exceptional schools for girls, Skywater aims to make Project Ullapara in Bangladesh self–sustainable and revenue-generating by implementing a rainwater collection and distribution program. By designing our school with a building plan suitable for rainwater collection, we will be able to harvest rainwater, store it, and sell it to local businesses, banks, and service centers that are in need of a constant water supply. The profits made by selling this water will be put directly back into the school with the goal of achieving sustainability in three years. This venture is a part of the evolving model of Circle of Women, which encourages innovation and efforts towards sustainability and would address a very crucial concern of water quality in Bangladesh.

We are very honored to be awarded 1st place in this competition and are excited to start developing Skywater as Project Ullapara progresses.

Circle of Women's sustainability venture 'Skywater' makes it to Green Competition Semi-Final Round

Princeton’s Circle of Women chapter has been working on creating a sustainable, revenue-generating venture to implement with Project Ullapara in Bangladesh. We have come up with a venture called “Skywater,” which uses a roof-collection technology to access rainwater to then be pasteurized, stored, and sold to local businesses. Skywater will use the Circle of Women school building to aid in the rainwater collection, and the water will be stored in water tanks on the facility’s property. In joining with Circle of Women, Skywater will serve a dual purpose in facilitating the accessibility of water and giving female students business acumen and training through vocational training associated with the project.

Skywater offers safe, healthy, local, and affordable water to buyers in the local area who are in desperate need for a reliable source of arsenic-free water. IN 1970, Bangladesh drilled millions of tube wells to provide villagers with clean water but many of these wells were dug into shallow layers of the ground containing naturally occurring arsenic. Since then, 77 million people, half of Bangladesh’s population, have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic. Skywater addresses an urgent need in Bangladesh and will do more than just make drinking water more available to those consumers who desperately need it. Skywater will also empower the local community by easing the burdens that fall on them in times of low water supply by providing a reliable source of clean water.

Through our venture “Skywater,” Circle of Women aims to address the dual issues of arsenic contamination in the water sources of rural Bangladesh and women’s empowerment through education. We believe that investing in women and girls’ education and health is the most powerful force for positive change within a community and creates a ripple effect for future generations. We are dedicated to making a difference in the health and quality of the lives of many rural Bangladeshis through our 360-degree model of women’s empowerment.

Circle of Women entered Skywater in the Princeton 2011 Green Business Plan Competition and our venture has made it to the Semi-Final Round. We will present our venture to a panelist of judges on Saturday, February 26th at 10:30am at Princeton University and then will be notified if we move onto the final round, which will take place during the afternoon of the 26th. The winner of the competition receives $10,000 in start-up funds!

VIDEO: Venture Proposal for the newly announced Bangladesh School

Circle of Women recently announced the approved Project Panchacrosi, which is extremely exciting! The proposed project is to build a secondary school for 700 girls in the village of Panchacrosi, outside the town of Ullampara in the Sirajganj District. According to UNESCO, global statistics of education in Bangladesh are as follows: 74% of females attend primary school; however, this number plummets to 29% for girls that attend secondary school (which is less than half the rate for boys). In higher secondary and higher education the numbers worsen: only 2.5% of girls attend these institutions.

The project is being spearheaded by Farah Faisal, a Harvard member who has family in Bangladesh.

An executive committee will be providing on the ground oversight of the project and help Circle of Women stay on track to complete the school by January 2012.

For their Social Entrepreneurship class at Princeton, several Circle of Women officers put together a video for a revenue-generating venture that could be implementing with Project Panchacrosi. This is just one viable option to help Circle of Women towards it's goal of sustainability.

Link to Circle of Women Video Proposal

Princeton's Poker Night

Our first ever Circle of Women Poker Night was a great success. After hearing about the success of Harvard's annual poker night fundraiser, Princeton decided to give it a go. Not only were the poker players asking us to put on this event every Friday but also we reached above our target goals with over 60 attendees and over $1,200 in funds raised.  The event was sponsored by Red Bull and prizes included cigars, t-shirts, sporting event tickets, beer tastings, restaurant gift certificates and nice liquor.  Thank you for everyone who supported this event and for your donations. We are hoping to have second Circle of Women Poker Event this spring!

Here are some pictures: 

New Officers for 2010-2011

Congratulations to the new officers!

JANELLE MORRIS ‘11

PRESIDENT

KAITLYN MAURITZ ‘11

VICE-PRESIDENT

ALEXANDRA DOUWES ‘11

HEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS

GENEVIEVE RYAN ‘11

HEAD OF STUDENT AFFAIRS

JENNIFER KEELEY ‘11

EVENT COORDINATOR

ERIN KIERNAN ‘12

ADVERTISING AND PUBLICITY

OFFICER

KATHLYN ADAMSON ‘11

EVENT COORDINATOR

ELIZABETH HINES ‘12

FINANCE CHAIR

JAMIE JOSEPH ‘13

PROJECT DIRECTOR

KATIE HSIA ‘13

TECH CHAIR

5K Fundraiser "Haul for the Wall"

On May 8th, 2010, the Circle of Women "Haul for the Wall" 5K race took place and was very successful. All the funds raised went towards building the security wall around our school in Afghanistan. We made  very popular tank tops for the event and sold them throughout the week leading up to the race - they sold out before the race even began! 

A large crowd showed up to participate the morning of the race and helped us raise over $1000 for the event. We look forward to having just as much success with our next 5K event!

Check out the pictures:

Let the games begin!

Some of our participants

Circle of Women members at registration

Greg Mortenson comes to Princeton!

On Friday October 23, 2009 Greg Mortensen made a stop at Princeton for his book tour featuring, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace.... One School at a Time. Of his many humanitarian acts and accomplishments, Mortensen serves as director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute (CAI), which serves to promote education for children, especially girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortensen has also created the charity organization “Pennies for Peace” which gives US school children the opportunity to help fundraise for CAI. 
Before the talk began, some of the members sold Bent Spoon's specially made Chai Tea for the event!  

 The officers of the Princeton Chapter along with several members who attended the talk heard about his life story and his first journey to Afghanistan, and how his determination and personality enabled him to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

             Mortenson encouraged us all to take action ourselves and help to promote peace through education. He himself is an outstanding example of how one person can make a great change in so many ways to the lives of so many. Our group was extremely inspired by Greg Mortenson’s story and humanitarian work, what an honor to meet him!

Princeton Joins the Circle

Harvard University founded Circle of Women in 2006 with the goal of setting up a school for young girls in Afghanistan. In 2008, they accomplished this goal and “Project Wonkhai” was opened for
1200 secondary school students. In the fall of 2009, Princeton joined the effort of advancing educational opportunities for girls in developing countries. 

Our group has grown to have over 50 dedicated and passionate members. As we are only in our second year, we have a lot of young energy and innovative ideas to spread the mission of Circle of Women. We are excited about the future prospects for the Princeton chapter and hope to contribute sustainable solutions that meet the intersection between education, empowerment and economic development for women and girls. We look forward to expanding our presence and name on campus through fundraising events and awareness campaigns.

Our Circle