Clinton Global Initiative 2010!

TYO is thrilled to be back in New York for our third appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative! We will be updating this site and Twitter throughout the week with all the exciting news, particularly related to this year's theme of efforts to support Women and Girls. There's also a session this afternoon with Shimon Peres, Salam Fayyad and Bill Clinton! In the meantime, we wanted to share the highlights of our participation this year: 1) We've made a CGI commitment to open three additional TYO centers! We are beginning work in Lebanon this fall in cooperation with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. We will replicate our Fostering Women Entrepreneurs project from Nablus in northern Lebanon as a first endeavor into a new country! Once that project is up and running, we will begin the needs assessment process for other TYO activities, including early childhood development programs and youth service learning. In the meantime, construction is underway on a large facility in Cairo that has generously been made available for TYO's use when it's ready in Spring 2011! Finally, plans are being finalized for the design of a major TYO Center in Rawabi, Palestine that will house TYO activities, with particular focus on women's entrepreneurship and IT training for women and children.

2) TYO Founder and President Hani Masri will address CGI participants during this afternoon's session on Women in the Middle East. Hani will talk about our comprehensive, needs-based approach to serving women in need in the Middle East so that they can participate productively in their families and communities. We feel strongly about this endeavor as a way to leverage women's potential as social change agents.

3) On Thursday, Cherie Blair and Mohamad Kilany of SoukTel will talk about our three-way commitment to leverage mobile phone technology to support our women entrepreneurs. We will develop an info-sharing service through which project partners can disseminate information about