Club Mission and Purpose
Girl Up Qatar is a high school club that’s main focus is fundraising and advocating for the education of girls. It was introduced to ASD in 2014 by student Sarah Hesterman. We are a branch of the United Nations Foundation that believes that educating girls is important to empower women and transform the world. Their money supports UN efforts to educate girls in Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Liberia, Uganda, and Malawi. Additionally to sending money to the United Nations, Girl Up Qatar is unique in that it has sponsored other efforts to educating girls.
Pictured here is Esther and Robert. Robert was a guard that worked at ASD and approached Girl Up Qatar asking us to sponsor Esther by paying her tuition to a private school in Kenya for 4 years. We began paying her school fees in 2015-16 and continue to hear updates from her. Esther is our first priority when deciding where money should go. We are committed to paying the rest of her tuition. Girl Up Qatar also helps sponsor Adela, a teacher from Tanzania who was put in touch with the club when a student met her on a service trip. Our financial obligations to Adela should now be complete. All organizations and causes that Girl Up Qatar donates to involve the education of women. We are interested in supporting grassroots organizations or causes that directly affect people. In 2017, Girl Up Qatar sent around $5,000 to various projects. These included the Chamunda School in Nepal, Syrian refugees via the Raf Foundation, Centro Accion in Mexico, and the United Nations Girl Up.
Fundraising
Girl Up Qatar is successful because we host many fundraisers within a year. Fundraisers are how we earn the money to support all the causes that are important to us. Fundraisers are held within school and cover a wide variety of audiences. Here is a list of our past successful fundraisers:
- Exam Goodie Bags
- This consisted of little bags for sale that had sweets, baked goods, and other treats inside. We usually made about 250 bags and sold them for 10 riyals during break and lunch.
- Bake Sale
- Each year Girl Up Qatar sells baked goods at the Friendship Festival. Members bake and then we sell them for 5 riyals. During the months ahead of the Friendship Festival, the president or sponsor should be in communication with the PTA to confirm the table, set up times, etc. Bake sales can be done other times of the year but are more difficult to get approved. In the past Girl Up has sold concessions at a visiting choir event and the co-ed softball league’s one-pitch tournament.
- Fauxtique
- Re-used clothing sale that was held in the High School Presentation Room. We collected nice clothes that people were not wearing. We sorted through all the clothes to make sure that we were not selling clothes with rips or stains on them. Then we set up the HSPR to look like a little store and sold the clothes for profit. Very successful fundraiser. Best if we can book the HSPR for a Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Leftover clothes are picked up by Qatar Charity.
- Elementary School Sleepover
- Hosted annually, this is a sleepover for grade 4 and 5 girls that sleep over at school for one night and participate in activities while learning about girl empowerment.
Advocacy
Advocacy in Girl Up Qatar focuses on spreading women’s rights around the school while focusing on why education is important. Advocacy is important to making our school aware of the disparity between education for boys and education for girls. Knowing facts is important. Most of our fundraising events also have a component of advocacy so that people attending know what Girl Up Qatar does and why it is important.
Meetings
Girl Up Qatar usually meets Sundays during lunch in the High School Presentation room. Make sure that the presentation room is booked for us and that nothing else is going on in that space. Meetings typically have two parts to them. The first part is what is going on with club activities. This involves telling club members what they can be a part of. If there are events that they can volunteer for or help out with, those things should be advertised at meetings. The second part of meetings should have some part of interactive segment for members. This can be something informational that is relevant to the club or a brainstorming session for members. It is important that something new happens each meeting.
Resources
Links
Girl Up United Nations website: https://girlup.org/
This website has information about the Girl Up United Nations Foundation that we are registered under.
Girl Up Clubs website: http://clubs.girlup.org/
This is the website that allows our club to register and keep information about our club so that we can continue to be a registered Girl Up club. Any member can create an account and use the resources on this website. The president should fill out reports. If the club has any questions about administrative issues, this website has contacts.
Girl Up Club Donation Forms: http://static.smallworldlabs.com/girlup/content/resources/Club-Donation-Form.pdf
Contacts
Himalayan Voluntourism website: http://himalayanvoluntourism.org/index.php
Prabin Gautam <prabin@himalayanvoluntourism.com>
Bikram Maharjan <bikram_brock@yahoo.com>
Centro Accion contact: Marco Pascoe <marco.pascoe@gmail.com>
Girl Up Contact: clubs@girlup.org
Finance:
Girl Up Qatar has its own account within the Student Activities Account with the Finance Office at ASD. For all finance issues please contact: Anna Lam <alam@asd.edu.qa>
In 2015, ExxonMobil donated $2000 to Girl Up Qatar. Any other money in the account has been earned through fundraising.
Girl Up’s commitment to Esther runs through the 2018-19 school year. We should budget approximately 3500 QR each year for her education.
The 2016-17 donation to the UN Girl Up was $500.
Girl Up Qatar 