Posted on November 11th, 2022
| Mujeres en Cambio held their first in-person event in almost three years on September 21 which, by all accounts, was very successful. It raised our local profile in SMA where many of our donors reside and returned over $3,000 USD for our girls. An additional $7,000 USD came in during the event from friends of volunteers who are impressed with our cause. Tickets to the luncheon for 70 supporters sold out for a $100 USD donation in just 6 days. Over one-third of those who attended were first-time donors to Mujeres en Cambio. Our organizing committee worked tirelessly at ensuring individual attention to each guest. Members of our executive committee gave very generously to underwrite most of the overhead costs. |
 Pakina Fernandez, co-founder, introduces Maria de la Cruz Salinas, a Mujeres en Cambio university graduate in Mechanical Engineering. Keep tissues nearby for point 2:16 in the video. |
| Two young women now pursuing successful careers in the state of Guanajuato were invited to speak at the luncheon. They were recipients of Mujeres en Cambio scholarships from grade 8 equivalent through university graduation and brought everyone to tears with their stories of how education had radically changed their lives. We are enormously proud of these and the many other young women who we have helped since our inception 27 years ago. We reiterated why it makes so much sense to support Mujeres en Cambio: our struggle for gender equity how educating girls breaks the cycle of poverty our impeccable track record as an all-volunteer low-overhead charity how little it costs to help keep a girl in school – $300 USD annually for grade school and $1,325 USD for university students A big Thank You to the event organizers, sponsors and volunteer contributions that made this event memorable. |
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| IN OTHER NEWS: INCREASED COMMITMENTS Based on our outstanding fundraising results in 2021, the Mujeres en Cambio Executive Committee has agreed to add 6 more girls to our program thereby raising our total intake at the grade 8 equivalent level to 27 for the 2022/23 school year – note that with each girl comes a commitment for 10 years of financial support from Mujeres en Cambio – 5 years of support for junior and high school and 5 years of support for university. to add students from an additional Community school bringing to 8 the number of communities where we select students for scholarship assistance` to a 7% increase in the value of scholarships we offer to our students to help mitigate the inflationary pressures they are experiencing. This is the first increase in over five years and brings our scholarship assistance per student to $300 USD per annum for junior and senior high school and $1,325 USD for university. to formally establish our reserve at 70% of our annual expenses. This reserve is designed to handle the commitments we have in the unlikely event of a major catastrophe. We have carried a reserve similar to this in the past. The Board has now formalized the reserve level. to invest any surplus funds in very conservative major Mexican bank term deposits until such time as we need them. to set aside $5,000 USD to help us move our planned database management upgrades to the next level and we have struck an ad hoc group to work on that project which has fallen behind our earlier expectations due to the departure of a key volunteer. |
| MUJERES EN CAMBIO IS SEARCHING FOR KEY VOLUNTEERS Communications Director Audit Grant researchers for USA, Canada and Mexico Grant application writers Volunteer recruitment and management These are all executive positions that should not take all a volunteer’s time. It is an opportunity to join a dynamic team, have some fun, get involved in our community, and get close to the exciting work of empowering young girls with education. Anyone interested or knowing anyone who might be interested is invited to call me at 1 52 415 101 7503. Warmly,  Donald Caldwell President Mujeres en Cambio |
