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C.E.O.
Women is expanding the impact of its program through an unprecedented use of
multimedia technology. C.E.O. Women has created an innovative educational soap
opera, called Grand Café, that
will standardize and scale up C.E.O. Women's existing 16-week training program
to reach more women in need. This 18-episode video series imparts language and
entrepreneurial training through the stories of four immigrant and refugee
women and their adventures, challenges and triumphs in starting their own
businesses in the U.S. This program will
allow women who face barriers to accessing services, such as time, distance and
safety, a more flexible way to gain the skills they need to succeed. The video
episodes will be made available through a combination of DVDs, broadcast, and
online distribution. Each video episode comes with a companion workbook.
To date the
organization has produced, disseminated, and evaluated the first episode of Grand Café. Developers are currently
working to revise and produce the full 18 episode series. Click on the video screen below to view the trailer!
About the Grand Café story-line
What if there was a
ground-breaking educational program that could do for adults what Sesame Street has
done for children? What if this program could empower low-income immigrant and
refugee women with the training and basic English language skills they need to
launch their own small enterprises and improve their livelihoods? Picture
Silvia, an immigrant woman from Mexico,
dressed in bulky overalls and born with an uncanny ability to fix things. Now
she's trying to start her own "fix it" business. Silvia and her three friends from El Salvador, China, and Haiti
meet weekly at the Grand Café, owned and operated by Antonio, a fine-looking,
eligible bachelor from Mexico. As time goes on, their stories, hopes,
challenges and secrets all unravel, culminating in powerful realizations about
their dreams for a better future in America.
Grand Café
Purpose and Goals
The Grand Café soap opera was designed:
- To reach out to immigrant and refugee women who are bound by
barriers to education including distance and language.
- To train women in Oakland and in
a South
Bay site.
- To scale up and spread C.E.O. Women's world-class program to other
micro-enterprise and micro-finance NGOs in the Bay Area, in California and
eventually across the country through affiliate partnerships.
This innovative tool will have a
multiplier effect on women, families, society and the economy that goes beyond
the walls of C.E.O. Women's classrooms.
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