SEO: Ginny Carroll rallies sorority community

Print: Circle of Sisterhoods Ginny Carroll presents foundations gift

Carrolls presentation inspires involvement with Circle of Sisterhood
A sea of sorority women smile together as the founder and executive director of
the Circle of Sisterhood Foundation, Ginny Carroll, kicks off her presentation with a
selfie of her and the waiting audience using a selfie stick. Carrolls presentation, titled
The Gift of Sorority, took place at Stamp Student Union Oct. 14, 2015 in the Colony
Ballroom.
The presentation detailed the efforts and successes of the Circle of Sisterhood
Foundation, and Carroll spoke about the difference that sorority women can make in their
community and the responsibility that the community has as privileged, educated women
to make movements to bring the same education to other women across the world.
Sorority was my Launchpad, said Carroll. In 2010 she started Circle of
Sisterhood, shocked but inspired by the book Half the sky: Turning Oppression into
Opportunity for Women Around the World, with other sorority women who shared her
passions and values about female education and service to others. Carroll says that
education will eradicate poverty and the book helped see this reality, and that getting
other sorority communities involved can help see this reality through.

Removing barriers to education

Its not just about putting girls butts in seats in classrooms, Carroll said.
Theres much more to it than that. It costs $53 to send a girl to school for a year and
provide her with meals, textbooks, a school uniform and school supplies. The foundation
works to teach girls a trade to support themselves outside of school, provide computers,

science labs, electricity, hygiene products and

school buildings.
Additionally, the Circle of Sisterhood
Foundation supports other organizations that share

She was just so

inspirational
-Lauren Watson, senior
physiology and
neurobiology major

their values like Camp GirlForward, Days for Girls and Love146. These organizations
help young girl refugees, educate women about menstruation and help women out of and
through trafficking and exploitation.
According to the Circle of Sisterhood website, during the years of 2011-2014, two
schools have been funded in Senegal and Nicaragua, 191 campus communities engaged,
800 plus individual donors and more than 45,000 people educated about these global
issues through the Circle of Sisterhood. According to the Circle of Sisterhood Foundation
Twitter page, some countries lose more than $1 billion per year because they fail to
educate girls to the same level as boys.

Our communitys promise

The University of Maryland has pledged to fund and build a school with the
Circle of Sisterhood in an undecided African country. The sorority community on campus
has raised around $10,000 so far.
Lauren Watson, a senior physiology and neurobiology major, attended the
presentation as a member of the PanHellenic Association executive board and became
inspired by Carroll. She was just so inspirational, Watson said. All the values she took
from being in AXiD and converting it into doing so much good and making it like a
national sorority philanthropy was just the most amazing.

The PanHellenic community continues its efforts to fundraise for their shared
philanthropy of womens education. With enough money, PHA plans to send
representative women from each chapter to Africa to break ground on the universitys
project.