Black Communities Matter: Women: A Lifetime Journey to Success

From Cancer to Courage

Hearing that you have ‘cancer’ must be a moment one never forgets. For this woman that moment was a reality. After one month of crying and despair our Brilliant Woman of the week said to her husband: “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be ok” and she reassured her doctors and nurses: “I’m going to fight that ‘creature’”. The nurse pointed to her head and said: “This is going to cure that”.Iro Missios, an immigrant from Greece, was determined to fight for her life and to keep her family together. “I realized that my family started to fall apart so I decided to help them. I was always very positive”, she explains. She started a small business in the basement of her husband’s pharmacy with her daughter.They started to import underwear from Greece and distribute it in Canada. “Thedisease gave me the strength to open my own business. I could do anything now”, she tells me. One year later, Iro opened her own retail store.

Full article here

From Business to Beneficial

Women who start their own businesses are admirable, but starting one to give back to the community is something worth celebrating. Pauline Alighieri started the business-turned-nonprofit Friends of Mel, which sells $15 bracelets to benefit breast cancer. The idea came about when her co-worker and friend Mel Simmons was diagnosed and eventually lost her life to the disease.
“Mel was an unbelievably generous spirit,” Alighieri tells PINK. “She was constantly giving. That's just who she was.” With a goal of $5,000 she was shocked when her business raised $300,000 in six months.
Full article here

From Victim to Victory

Stories about domestic violence only make headlines when they end in tragedy. But there are positive outcomes for many survivors, and Verizon Wireless is supporting those women through a program developed in consultation with the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. For the past two years, the telecommunications company has provided survivors of domestic violence seed money to start or grow their own small businesses through the Verizon Domestic Violence Entrepreneurship Grant Program. On October 23, 2004, Ebony Fletcher's ex-boyfriend came to her home in hopes of reuniting. When she refused, he pulled out a gun and shot her in the leg. She fought to grab the gun, but he pinned her face down to the floor, sat on her back and shot her in the head at point blank range. A basketball player she believes could have made it to the pros, Fletcher's ex had no previous history of violence toward her, not even verbal abuse, but had changed after coming home from prison.
Full article here

From Homeless to Helpful

After a tough beginning, VL Fanai is now a successful cosmetologist and designer of skin care products, ans she is sharing her good fortune through her Bright Future Foundation. After her divorce from an abusive husband, she and her four daughters were left homeless.
Full article here

From Fearful to Fortunes

Many women are fearful to start a small business and face many obstacles to equality with men on the workplace. But should only take these obstacles of inequality as the driving force to become small business owners.

Black Communities Matter

Pages

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Women: A Lifetime Journey to Success

No comments:

Post a Comment