by Davy James, Staff Writer
The South Brunswick Commission on Women will hold its 12th annual Women’s Leadership Conference 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Feb. 28 at South Brunswick High School.
The conference will offer numerous career and education workshops featuring successful women in various fields to act as examples and mentors for township students.
”We have professionals from all fields and a number of distinguished panelists,” said chair of the South Brunswick Commission on Women Atiya Aftab. “We have a conductor from Princeton, we have physicians from the area, and with every panel we’re proud to have many who are renowned in their fields.”
The event is free and open to South Brunswick women and students from grades eight through 12. Two $1,000 scholarship winners will be announced during the conference. The keynote speaker at the conference will be Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex).
”We spoke to students about who they’d like to see as keynote speaker and with all the excitement in politics this year they requested a politician,” Ms. Aftab said. “It’s hard to find women in politics but we were able to get Linda Greenstein.”
The workshops feature a wide variety of occupations, including education, government and politics, health, legal, communications and journalism, corporate business, finance, visual arts, owning your own business, and engineering science and technology.
Ms. Aftab said the workshops serve to build relationships for when the young women advance into the workplace.
”The theme is really to try and develop a mentor relationship and create a network of women to pull each other up and advance their careers,” Ms. Aftab said. “We want to inspire them to follow their dream and pursue their education. We want them to understand the sky is the limit in what they can accomplish in their careers and the women who will be on these panels are there to be role models and provide support.”
Approximately 300 students have registered for the conference.
Registration forms are still being accepted and will be accepted the morning of the conference. However, not everyone will get their first choice of workshops.
Registration forms are available at SBHS, Crossroads North and South middle schools, South Brunswick Public Library and the Municipal Building. Completed forms should be returned to SBHS.
For more information or to download a form visit http://sites.google.com/site/sbcw2009/.

