A new club was established at the school this year. The Circle of Women is an organization that raises money to build schools for girls in Afghanistan. The larger organization is currently working on building a secondary school for 1200 girls, while at Wayland High School we are trying to raise money to contribute to the cause. Young people are the future, and funding for girls to be educated is especially important because in Afghanistan they are seen as inferior people in society. We need to help fund female teachers because families in Afghanistan will not send their daughters to school with a male teacher. Our first focus for the club is to direct all our money to female teachers’ salaries. In order to fund one teacher’s salary at the school, we need to raise $300 a month.

At the club fair, we were successful in getting over 60 people to sign up, which was great for a new club. We were surprised at how interested people were in the cause, and we will have a lot of fun raising money. Though the organization is known as the Circle of Women, we altered the title to Circle of Education because many students were misled into thinking that the club was only for girls.

One of our goals is to sell Livestrong bracelets embossed with the word “educate.”  We have already had three bake sales, which were successful in providing a strong start to our fund. We raised over $180 at our first bake sale, $150 at our second, and about $80 at the third. We don’t have any upcoming events planned yet for the club, but we’re shooting for the stars and hoping to host a dance or something similar. It is very easy for us to help these people in need, and dedicating just minutes of our time to the cause makes a huge difference.

(For more information about The Circle of Women, please visit www.circleofwomen.org)