News in the world of Girls Ed

A lot of great things are happening with Girls Education International right now. Just last week I was asked to sit on a panel at the Global Alliance for International Advancement's first conference, to be held in May. I'll be answering questions about the international education of girls. The conference will also include a variety of workshops, panels, roundtables, luncheons and receptions. They expect approximately 800-1000 attendees each day, including corporate entities, NGO’s, UN agencies and institutions of higher learning, "creating a truly global community," says the organizers. The convention will be May 9th, 10th and 11th at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

One of the panels that is being put together is on education. It will focus on education as the silver bullet. They have asked me to speak on the panel and discuss the program. Cool. We are all very excited. Board member Elizabeth O'Neill and I are going to meet next week to discuss how to prepare for the conference.

I am also meeting with Jancy Quinn, our marketing director, who has put together a marketing/fund raising plan based on discussions we've had and information we've gleaned from other sources. This is excited.

We have also made progress on our 501(c)3 application and will be sending that off shortly.

We are going to re-launch our website mid-April. It won't be significantly different, but we will change the focus so that it does not seem as if we only work in Pakistan. Though we strive to operate a program over there, we haven't had much luck finding a NGO partner. We had one we thought was going to work out, but they disappeared when we were finalizing the details of the assessment in the village Khane. We are unsure how to navigate the very unstable world of NGOs in that country. We have a couple other options we are currently pursuing and we hope (Inshallah!) that something comes of them.

On the other hand (and the reason we are changing the focus of the website), our Liberia program is doing very well. Emily returned from visiting the girls and paying their fees a month ago and is now compiling information and grades for all the girls. We should have more news soon.

Finally, we are working on the first of our quarterly newsletters, to be launched also in April.

Things are going well at GEI. My next goals are to apply for additional grants.

-Lizzy