This week, I attended a fantastic event at my summer firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, celebrating the launch of the Ms. JD Global Education Fund and its inaugural Scholars, Ugandan law students Joaninne Nanyange and Monica Athieno.  In addition to its core mission of increasing the representation of women in the legal profession in the U.S., Ms. JD aims to support the rise of women lawyers worldwide.  In that spirit, Ms. JD’s Global Education Fund was created to support women in developing countries to pursue legal educations who would otherwise lack access to higher education.  This year the Fund enabled two young Ugandan women, Joaninne Nanyange and Monica Athieno, to pursue their dreams of becoming lawyers by attending the law program at Makerere University in Uganda.  (Read more about Jonaninne and Monica’s amazing stories here.)

The event also featured remarks by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Deputy Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.  Gayle, who is also an HBS grad, spoke about the need to transform our image of women in warfare.  Women are most often portrayed as victims, when in fact they are often the center of family life and sole breadwinners during times of incredible danger and turmoil.  Gayle’s book is the story of Kamila Sidiq, an unsung heroine of the period of Taliban rule over Afghanistan, who rallied the women of her community to become successful entrepreneurs at a time when almost all other opportunities had been taken from them.

Please follow the links to learn more about Gayle’s work and Ms. JD!

- Amy Sennet, Rising 3L, President, Harvard Women’s Law Association