Daily Times

KARACHI: We know life has come full circle, when we start giving back to society, relying solely and wholly on ourselves.

The feeling of enrichment and empowerment stands equal to no other and with that, one feels productive in more ways than one. Pakistan is slowly on its way to empowering women 100 percent. We can support our statement with many examples, one of which is CIRCLE.

Led by the strong and enterprising Sadaffe Abid, CIRCLE Pakistan’s mission is to advance women’s economic participation and empowerment through innovative entrepreneurship and leadership laboratories, advocacy campaigns and research.

“CIRCLE builds on my experience in micro-finance and financial inclusion. I joined Kashf Foundation as operations and research analyst and became one of seven members in its founding team. The mission of providing financial services to women from low-income families so they can prosper inspired me. I spent 12 years with Kashf, grew to become the COO, and later CEO. It was a terrific journey and a privilege to contribute to creating transformation. After my masters at the Harvard Kennedy School, I found myself in Dubai as my husband wanted to move there. I had to reinvent myself. It was a challenging period. I did not know where to begin or what steps to take. All my life I had lived, breathed and dreamt about micro-finance. And now I had to start all over. So, after a few months, I went back to Harvard and joined my Professor Ron Heifetz as a teaching fellow on his adaptive leadership course. This course changed my life; it gave me insight about myself, my blind spots and provided tools to exercise leadership. I thought, why not bring this to the region and to women in particular,” Sadaffe Abid says while talking exclusively to Daily Times.

“That’s how the idea of CIRCLE started. I met two dynamic women at an executive leadership programme at Harvard. We created CIRCLE Global as a network to provide support and inspiration to each other and to other women. When I moved back to Pakistan, I took the work forward by creating CIRCLE Pakistan. The organisation aspires to bridge the gender gap in Pakistan and build a network of Pakistanis investing in the elevation of women. It is based on the belief that investing in women is the smartest economic venture of today,” she says further.

Ever since its inception, CIRCLE has developed Women and Business Chapters throughout the country to engage professional women and female founders and provide them with access to networks and mentors.

“Cherie Blair Foundation partnered with us to design a year-long mentorship programme which currently serves 10 promising businesswomen. We have had dynamic leaders such as Engro Corporation former CFO Naz Khan, English Biscuit CEO Zeelaf Munir and American-Pakistan Foundation Chairperson Riaz Siddiqui come and meet the chapters and share their journeys and insights. Successful entrepreneur HSY has met our chapter and shared his inspirational journey with our network of women. We also host dialogues and conversations at Alliance Francaise Karachi on women and the economy where multiple stakeholders participate. Besides this, CIRCLE uses social media and technology to advocate for change, policy shifts and reach a wider audience on discussions surrounding women in Pakistan,” Abid says.

As of now, there are interns coming in to CIRCLE from Columbia, Tufts, Mount Holyoke, Harvard Kennedy School and several of Pakistan’s leading universities. Under CIRCLE’s umbrella, Elevate Pak, has received over 850 pledges from Pakistani organisation representatives and youth to only take part in panels that feature at least one woman and to amplify women’s voices in professional spheres!

Off late, there have been a number of events, taking place under the auspices of CIRCLE. CIRCLE has brought She Loves Tech, a global start-up competition initiated by Lean In China and Tech Rock to Pakistan. Leading incubators in the country are partners. Tech veterans mentor start-ups and Lakson Investments and Sybrid bring business and technical support. The top 11 teams have been announced for She Loves Tech Pakistan on CIRCLE’s Demo Day at Nest i/o. The winner of the Pakistan round will go on to participate in a week-long boot camp at the final round during the She Loves Tech conference in Beijing in September.

“One of our exciting projects, Tech4Empowerment, is an innovative initiative bringing coding skills to women and girls to leverage the power of technology for transformation and growth. We have interviewed 230 students from various underserved areas of the city,” Abid adds.

Abid believes CIRCLE is bringing attention to the challenges women face and providing tools through partnerships and innovative solutions.

Published in Daily Times, July 15^th , 2017.