When the Woman is Boss

Volunteering has been part of Farhana Huq’s life since she was 14. A graduate in Economics and Philosophy from Tufts University, she gave time during her student life to various non-profits, from transitional housing sites for homeless women to Oxfam America. Today she is the founder of C.E.O.Women, a non-profit dedicated to creating economic opportunities for low-income immigrant and refugee women through teaching English, communications, and entrepreneurship skills. “We have one world, and only one life. I’m interested in making a difference with my life versus just trying to make it comfortable. I feel the need to live my life with a degree of consciousness that the world is not about us, and it needs to be our responsibility to maintain and protect it.”

Farhana Huq

Watching her divorced aunt, who helped raise her, struggle to be economically independent while raising three children impacted Farhana deeply. It has been a compelling part of why she does what she does. At 24, while struggling to raise funds for the non-profit Micro Enterprise in Action, Farhana met a mentor who offered to invest in Farhana’s idea to help underprivileged women, and "C.E.O. Women" was born. Since its inception, "C.E.O. Women" has served over 1,600 Bay Area immigrant women. In the early years, Farhana had to commit to doing contract jobs in fundraising, program design, and bookkeeping to make ends meet. She did this while working as an Executive Director with no pay, doing the books, running the board meetings, teaching the classes, putting up flyers on the streets of Oakland and doing these on a shoestring budget with an all volunteer organization.

Today with 20 staff and contractors to run training and support services, C.E.O. Women has expanded from Oakland into San Jose. The average C.E.O. Women graduate:

• Increases household income by $28,000
• 56% of women start or grow businesses
• 87% of women increase their confidence speaking, writing and reading English

How’s that for results? The organization partners with community groups and in the spirit of innovation that has been the hallmark of the organization, they've launched Grand Café, a soap opera based teaching tool. Grand Café imparts language, financial literacy and entrepreneurial training through the stories of four immigrant and refugee women by demonstrating their challenges and triumphs in starting their own businesses in the United States. The 18-episode series of DVDs and workbooks is used in conjunction with classroom-based training offered by C.E.O. Women.

Farhana feels that the idea of a safety net in careers is an illusion. The landscape of what’s possible for a career has never been more diverse. “The next generation is limited only by their ability to dream and try new challenges,” say Farhana. On the cards are plans to take C.E.O. Women national.

More info:
* YouTube C.E.O. Women's Channel