Empowered Women International

Thanks to your generous support we raised $16,434 toward our year-end goal of $35,000.

We urgently must to raise $18,566 before Dec 31, 2011 to ensure the necessary funding to help talented and high-potential immigrant, refugee and low-income American-born women start-up businesses and become productive and contributing members of our community.

There is no better time than in the midst of crisis to invest in growing the entrepreneurial sector. Yet support for entrepreneurs in the current financial climate, especially marginalized communities such as immigrants and low-income women has been very limited.

Watch this video and listen to Shahnaz’s story of courage.

She is a refugee who lost everything in her life, and she was forced to leave her country and start again several times. But she is not giving up.  

The business she started through EWI’s Entrepreneur Training for Success, Babylon Spirit, focuses on paintings and folk art influenced by Middle East. This not only provides Shahnaz with a source of income, but allows her to integrate in and contribute to her newly adopted country.

We rely on support and contributions from individuals like you to provide our entrepreneurship education program, mentoring and support services to women like Shahnaz, who are determined to rebuild their lives, integrate and give back.

Please make a tax-deductible gift today and help us continue to create jobs and rebuild lives.

EWI’s successful model of empowerment for women was recognized in several publications, and most recently EWI’s Founder Marga Fripp was featured in the newly published book Immigration and Women: Understanding the American Experience by Susan C. Pearce, Elizabeth J. Clifford, and Reena Tandon.

Susan C. Pearce, one of the book authors and a longtime supporter of EWI says that,

“EWI is a story of positive energy, inspiration, and hope – not only for immigrants, but for all of us.I met Marga Fripp as she was conceiving her vision of this venture, when I was involved as a founder of an immigrant rights group and newsletter in Baltimore. Since then, I have watched this dream blossom into the enterprise that it is today. Initiatives such as EWI affect social change both visibly and directly, through training and mentorship to help individuals survive and prosper, and more invisibly and indirectly, by helping to stabilize communities, empower women as a group, contribute to our economy, and reverse the negative images that are often held about immigrants.”

“When my co-authors and I were choosing individuals’ stories to profile in our book, “Immigration and Women: Understanding the American Experience”, we selected Marga Fripp and her inspiring work with Empowered Women International to include in our section about activists.”

 We need organizations such as Empowered Women International most critically in times like these, when the conventional workplace is low on job creation and immigrants become scapegoats for our country’s financial woes.”

For every donation made to EWI between now and Dec 31, you will be entered into a raffle to WIN the book “Immigration and Women: Understanding the American Experience,”by Susan C. Pearce, Elizabeth J. Clifford, and Reena Tandonwith a personal dedication from me to you.

 Make a tax-deductible gift today and help us meet our year-end goal of $35,000. Donors like you ensure that EWI grows and changes more lives in the year to come.

Thank you for your generous donation this holiday season!

Help us secure $35,000 by December 31st so we can sustain our programs and expand our capacity to deliver services in 2012.

Things are bustling at EWI with an amazing array of innovative projects coming out of the Entrepreneur Training for Success (ETS), an intense 3-month business incubator, mentoring and training program for start-up women entrepreneurs.

Thanks to your continued generosity and support, our women students sponsored in the ETS are currently working on their business plans and preparing for their graduation and business launch on Dec 17, 4-7pm at our office in Alexandria, VA. Please save the date and join us to celebrate our students’ success!

As we’re wrapping up this program and begin recruiting students for the spring semester, we need your help to ensure we can continue to provide services to some of the most talented and promising low-income or at risk, immigrant, refugee and other women in need.

Help us secure $35,000 by December 31st so we can sustain our programs and expand our capacity to deliver services in 2012.

What is truly remarkable about these women is not only the quality of their work, but the circumstances in which these women launch new businesses.

A recent survey EWI conducted on its current students shows that:

• 90% of the women served live at or below the poverty level.
• 80% experienced domestic violence, sexual abuse, war trauma, and unemployment.
• 70% have a higher education degree, yet they earn less than $25,000/year.

This discouraging reality requires innovative solutions to address the service gap and complex needs of the low-income, immigrant and refugee women in our community. One of these solutions is entrepreneurship and self-employment, the core service provided by EWI.

Tiffany and Bre

She was selected to enroll in the Entrepreneur Training for Success Fall Semester 2011 along with her business partner Bre, to launch a company that would sell her own designs in fashion accessories and beauty care.

“I feel that EWI’s business program has provided a very holistic approach to entrepreneurship, that I hadn’t experienced before in any of the other business courses I attended. All the planning, projecting, and charting in the world won’t do any good if I am not also built up in the process. I highly valued having the mentoring and coaching available to me throughout this process.

At EWI, I was not only asked to learn to perform the technical tasks such as business planning, budgeting, marketing, etc., but I was asked to face my personal fears in order to grow and excel as a woman and a business owner. My most prized possession that I walk away with is a newly found confidence that I can carry with me in all areas of my life.”

In less than three months, Tiffany and Bre have developed a strong product line, a solid business plan, an online shop and marketing materials to promote their business. They are now networking with boutique owners, sell their work through EWI’s events and continue to work with EWI’s staff and mentors to develop effective marketing strategies.

Thanks to your support, EWI has helped more than 170 women like Tiffany and Bre since 2005 to start up their businesses, market their art and products, and stabilize their lives.

Thousands of more women in our Greater Washington DC Metro Area need our help urgently, and several women and groups working nationally and internationally have reached out to us and asked to teach our program to their communities. We can expand our program and reach all those women in need. But we need your help now to make this dream a reality.

We must raise $35,000 by December 31st to help us sustain our program and expand our capacity to deliver services.

Thank you for all you do to ensure EWI’s growth and success for years to come. Together, we are creating jobs, building a strong community, and bringing women together to help one another succeed.

The Empowered Women International team is thrilled to present our brand new blog! Each week we will be bringing you posts on featured products from our Etsy store, EWI member and artists spotlights, timely and interesting articles, information about upcoming events and opportunities, and resources to help empower and inspire you in all of your entrepreneurial endeavors.

If you have any topics you would like to us to address, drop us a comment or email shannon@ewint.org.

We’ll be posting daily. Make sure you don’t miss anything by subscribing to our blog or adding us to your Google Reader!

Apply NOW! Entrepreneur Training for Success, Fall 2011.

Empowered Women International is recruiting 12-15 immigrant, refugee and low-income women artists, artisans and social entrepreneurs for its mentoring and business start-up training: Entrepreneur Training for Success (ETS). ETS is an award-winning program of Empowered Women International.

The program runs for three months from September to December every Monday from 6pm-9pm in Alexandria. Interested applicants can contact Shannon at shannon@ewint.org or call EWI at 571-366-7724.

Training tuition: Tuition is based on sliding scale fee.

Application deadline: August 15th

Interested in the program?

• Read more about what it entails, who qualifies, what the graduation requirements are, and how you’ll benefit
• Have a look at the Spring 2011 Course Schedule
• Learn about the program’s history and its impact
• Meet last semester’s students
• APPLY!