C.E.O. Women Launches Grand Cafe Educational Soap Opera and Expands Proven Program into San Jose

C.E.O. Women Launches Grand Cafe Educational Soap Opera and Expands Proven
Program into San Jose
Expansion Provides More Immigrant Women with Access to Proven Entrepreneurial
Education Program

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Creating Economic Opportunities for
Women (C.E.O Women), a non-profit organization developing economic
opportunities for immigrant and refugee women, today announced the launch of
its new multimedia series to expand the reach of its proven educational
entrepreneurship program. The Grand Cafe educational soap opera provides
low-income immigrant and refugee women with access to English and business
training, in order to help them attain their goals of becoming economically
self-sufficient individuals and small business owners. C.E.O. Women will
implement the educational soap opera in its existing Oakland-based program, as
well as in its new San Jose program.

"Since founding C.E.O. Women, we have been focused on creating a program that
is uniquely geared toward immigrant women looking to start their own small
businesses, as this group faces a unique set of challenges including language
and cultural barriers," said Farhana Huq, founder and CEO of C.E.O. Women. "We
are now taking our proven program and offering it to women in the South Bay
who didn't previously have access to our resources through use of popular
media and technology. With the launch of Grand Cafe, we believe we are
reaching these women in a more relatable way, and have the potential to expand
into even more areas in the future."

Grand Cafe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqEyf3Oqxak) 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 U.S. The 18-episode series of DVDs and
workbooks will be used in conjunction with classroom-based training offered by
C.E.O. Women. This will allow more women the ability to participate in a more
flexible way. The official launch of the Grand Cafe will run simultaneously
with C.E.O Women's expansion into San Jose.

Currently, nearly 127,000 immigrant women reside in the Bay Area, with 38,000
living in San Jose. Many of these women are unable to commute north to
Oakland and will now be able to participate in classroom study, while also
utilizing the Grand Cafe series.

Since its inception, C.E.O. Women has served over 1,600 Bay Area immigrant
women through its award-winning business entrepreneurship program, workshops,
one-on-one assistance and referrals.

About C.E.O Women

C.E.O. Women is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 to address systemic
poverty and lack of income mobility faced by low-income immigrant and refugee
women. The mission of C.E.O. Women is to create economic opportunities for
low-income immigrant and refugee women through teaching English,
communications and entrepreneurship skills, so they can establish successful
livelihoods. For more information about C.E.O. Women's mission and programs,
visit them on the World Wide Web at www.ceowomen.org.

SOURCE C.E.O. Women

Tonia Korakis, Communications of C.E.O. Women, +1-510-836-3481, ext. 306,
tonia@ceowomen.org