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