A Unique Model

In September 2009, C.E.O. Women launched Grand Café, a ground-breaking microenterprise training program that takes the same ESL and entrepreneurship training from the organization's traditional 16-week classroom training and integrates it into an 18-episode soap opera that tells the story of four immigrant women who want to start their own businesses.

Grand  Café is...

INNOVATIVE

The only program of its kind in the microenterprise industry, Grand  Café is a "blended learning" model, taking distance learning - used successfully in many industries including ESL - and combining it with opportunities for trainer and peer support.

ACCESSIBLE

Women watch the DVD episodes and complete accompanying workbook exercises in their homes and attend group sessions led by a Vocational ESL trainer in Oakland and San Jose.  The Grand Café program model enables C.E.O. Women to reach out to women who were previously unable to enroll in the twice weekly classroom training due to barriers such as employment, childcare, or transportation.

RELEVANT

The characters in Grand Café were developed to mirror C.E.O. Women's client population.  Students can easily relate to the adventures, challenges, and triumphs that the characters in Grand Café experience as they start their own businesses as immigrant women in the United States.

SCALABLE

The Grand Café program follows a rolling admissions calendar, enabling C.E.O. Women to reach more women per year than ever before.  Through future strategies such as television broadcast, online distribution, and an affiliate partnership program, C.E.O. Women hopes to bring its training to the more than 170,000 women in the Bay Area that could benefit from it, as well as women across the nation. 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.