One in two women in India is illiterate, and the Circle of Women club is determined to do something about that.
The club is a local chapter of an organization centered at Harvard University, also called the Circle of Women.
According to the club presidents, juniors Emily Summers and Katherine Fleming, the organization has succeeded in raising funds to build schools in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Malawi.
Summers and Fleming said that the organization is eager to extend its reach by recruiting other high schools to its cause.
Raising money through fundraisers and bake sales and sending it to the main organization is one of the club’s primary objectives, they said. However, according to junior Elena Sinagra, a club member, improving female literacy around the world requires more than just a donation.
“I think hands on working and being with those people is always more beneficial than just sending money,” she said.
Sinagra also believes that people all over the world should have equal education and opportunity.
“They could be the next geniuses. They could be the next Albert Einstein,” she said. “So we should all level off the playing field.”
Summers said that she and Fleming are motivated by a desire to lift up women and girls.
“I think we’re both really committed to feminism and girls’ equality,” Summers said. “We both think education is like a central tool to helping girls in many other ways and changing the world one community at a time.”
But Sinagra said that people do not need an ideological background in order to support their cause.
“It’s not so much about feminism or other -isms. It’s more about rights and giving rights to other people and women’s rights,” Sinagra said. “It’s easy to educate people if everyone joins forces.”
Fleming said another purpose of the club is to inspire students to take initiative.
“Every student has the potential to make a difference in their school, their community and the global community,” Fleming said. “It’s all about students helping students and taking responsibility for themselves and international conflicts.”
Junior Touraine Adams, a club member, approaches the issue with a simple philosophy.
“We all live in the same planet,” she said, “so we should help everyone out.”
Sasha Saias can be contacted at [email protected].
