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 http://www.allheadlinenews.com:80/articles/7016460090?Women%20Helping%20Women%20Realize%20Their%20Dreams

 

Israel - Women Helping Women Realize Their Dreams

 

The Media Line Staff

September 21, 2009

Carmel Market, Tel Aviv, Israel (TML) - Varda Shner circles her stand in Tel Aviv's upscale arts and crafts market with heartening delight.

A 60 year old multidisciplinary artist from the Israeli city of Holon, Varda waited years for the honor of being given a spot in the pedestrian market to sell her ornate paper-mache dolls.

"I tried to get a spot for five years," Varda says. "You have to be an artist who makes your own stuff and sells it directly to customers? Finally I got in."

But Varda, a single mother who worked for 10 years as an art therapist for Israelis with special needs, says her dream was short lived and she soon realized her ability to make a profit selling her dolls was limited at best.

"It's hard to make a sale because I am selling high quality stuff," she says. "Today an American bought a $100 doll which took me two weeks to make."

Feeling worthless and as if no one wanted her work, in early 2008 Varda came across Supportive Community, a non-profit dedicated to empowering Israeli women from all walks of life to develop small businesses.

"I already had the skills in art, they helped me to expand my business skills and market myself better," she remembers. "It helped me get over my fear. They would tell me 'You're not selling yourself, you're selling your product.' That gave me courage to approach museums and higher end clients."

Within months of joining one of the organization's training programs, Varda doubled her prices, developed a new line of dolls for museums and exhibitions, doubled her customer base and began receiving orders from government agencies.

She now has her own studio, makes money teaching other women to make paper-mache dolls, has been given a more prominent spot in the arts and crafts market and has even been approached by the prestigious Israel Museum.

Supportive Community, dubbed the Women's Business Development Center, was founded in 2003 by a small group of Israeli women recently arrived from the former Soviet Union and looking to work together to improve their lot.

"Women face all sorts of problems," says Lena Gurary, the CEO and co-founder of Supportive Community. "First they lack a social network and business knowledge: 'What is income tax?' 'What is VAT?' Second, many women have neither money nor any significant personal financial history, yet it is only people with money who are given credit. Finally, once women open a business they are paid less money for their work."

"So women are scared," Lena explains. "They think 'No one will buy from me, I won't get credit, I'll be alone'... We looked at all this and decided to start something."

Named by the Israel Small and Medium Enterprises Authority as one of Israel's most important women's organization, Supportive Community provides business training and micro-loans for Israeli women to establish or expand a small business.

The organization has grown exponentially and, with only seven full-time staff members, served over 3,000 women in just six years of operation.

"We never intended to start an organization," remembers Lena. "We just wanted an open, supportive and cooperative small business. It grew into something much bigger than us."

Modeled on the founding group, Supportive Community moves around the country teaching women to help and support each other in developing personal and joint small businesses.

"We don't open branches," Lena says. "We arrive in a place, build cooperative circles of women and move on."

Lena says that in addition to expanding business opportunities, bringing women together has the added advantage of helping traditionally marginalized groups integrate into Israeli society.

"We realized you can't help women to get out of the ghetto while they're still in a cultural ghetto," she says.

"The advantage in Israel is that it's perfectly acceptable to speak with an accent so female immigrants have a good shot if they try," she says, adding that new immigrants face the added challenge of learning a language well enough to operate a business.

"In America or Britain, try to speak in a funny accent. You're clearly an outsider," she explains. "Here it is not like that."

Serving an exceptionally diverse group of women, from new Ethiopian and Russian immigrants to native born Israelis, including both secular and religious Jews and Arabs, the group's gatherings have provided a rare haven for multicultural interaction between Israeli women.

"I just love these women," says Jullet Kahwaji, an Arab Israeli living in Jaffa, the ancient port city just south of Tel Aviv, as she kisses and hugs Rivka Rav-Chen, an ultra-orthodox Jewish woman.

Along with women of various backgrounds, from religious Muslims to secular Jewish women from Uzbekistan, Jullet and Rivka have been taking a Supportive Community business course for a few months now.

"We realized that we have a lot of talent together," Kahwaji says. "So we said OK let's go for it and set up an events management business."

Beyond Jullet, who just opened a new candle and decorations shop, and Rivka, who is studying to be a cosmetician and can do makeup for events, at least half a dozen other women are involved in setting up the new initiative: Esther will do the catering, Somayyah the jewelry design, Shahla can make the tablecloths, Angela will design the cake and Lina the 'cake topper'.

"If a bride comes we are ready," Jullet says. "We already have everything we need through female friends."

"My dream was to open a business and they have really helped me," adds Rivka, a recently widowed single mother. "I wouldn't have had the push to move forward and the self-esteem to just say 'I'm going for this.'"

With funding from a number of foundations, principally the New Israel Fund and the Hadassah, Rosenzweig-Coopersmith and Levi Lassen foundations, Supportive Community works with a local microfinance fund to provide small loans to women who have completed one of the organization's business training programs but are unable to access traditional credit.

"A loan is worthless if a person is not given any direction and being given direction is worthless if you don't have the capital to start a serious small business," Lena says. "So first we prepare women and give them all the tools necessary to start or expand a business. Then we give them a small loan and see how it goes."

Dubbed "smart loans" by the organization, loans of between 1000 and 5000 shekels ($263 - $1,315 or 161 to 804 GBP) are given to women who have successfully completed a Supportive Community business management course yet cannot get a conventional loan.

"We don't want women to get 5000 shekels and just say 'Wow!'" Lena stresses. "We want them to think through exactly what they plan to do with the money, how long they plan to have the loan for and how they plan to pay it back."

Only 3.4% of the money loaned by Supportive Community has not been returned due to defaulting loans.

The organization plans to hold an award ceremony this year to reward graduates of the program who have led by example. The awards: "The Most Unique Business", "The Best Fulfillment of a Dream" and "The Best Dream".

"For now I'll stick with the best dream," says Rivka. "I don't need to be unique, but I would love to have my own successful business. It may be simple, but that is my dream."


 





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