Harpswell Foundation

We operate two dormitory and leadership centers for university women in Phnom Penh that provide free housing and food, leadership training, and critical thinking skills to some of the brightest and most ambitious young women in Cambodia while they are attending universities. Our students attend 20 different universities in Phnom Penh. After our sec... ond year of operation, our students were first in their class at most of the major universities in Phnom Penh. As of Fall 2015, we have 103 graduates, beginning with the class of 2010, and 79 current students. Our graduates are working as lawyers in law firms, as project managers in NGOs, as journalists, as financial managers, as staff in the government ministries, as teachers, and as business entrepreneurs. About 35 of our graduates have received scholarships for post-graduate study abroad, including 26 to the U.S. Our graduates have formed a Harpswell Alumnae Association so that they may stay in touch with each other, help each other get jobs, mentor the current students, and constantly reinforce the mission of Harpswell. Our alumnae are becoming a powerful wave that will help move Cambodia into the future. The Harpswell Foundation is an American based 501c3 tax-exempt organization, classified by the IRS as a private operating charity, with a mission to provide education, housing, and leadership training to young women in the developing world. Harpswell is completely supported by donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations. In May of 2007, we became an officially registered Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) in Cambodia. Studies by the World Bank and other international organizations have shown that educating and empowering girls and women is the single most effective way to aid developing countries. As described in Nicholas Kristof's and Sheryl Wudunn's new book Half the Sky , women around the world, discriminated against and marginalized, are not the problem but the solution to poverty, lack of education, lack of health care, lack of community. The ...Read More