Students Class 2010
Adela Poudratchi – Business Entrepreneur: Middle Eastern Jewelry
Adelina Perez del Castillo Mena – Event, Portrait, and Fine Art Photographer
Amy Ruth Odean – Women’s Apparel Designer
Brigitta Kral – Creator of All-Natural Bath and Body Products
Elena Nolan – Fine Art Painter
Elleni T. Ashine – Social Entrepreneur: Ethiopian Fair Trade
Kim M. – Collage Artist and Card Maker
Kwanele Ndlovu – Social Entrepreneur: Girls’ Education in Zimbabwe
Paula Margus – Art Promoter
Sydnei Smithjordan – Visual Artist and Painter
Tacha Coleman Parr – Jazz Singer and Songwriter
Yarmila Aragon – Business Entrepreneur: Scandinavian Bar and Restaurant
Adela Poudtrachi
Business Entrepreneur
Her Project: Create an online marketplace to sell high-end fashion jewelry made by women artisans in the Middle East
Adela Poudratchi joined Empowered Women International to pursue her passion of promoting Middle Eastern culture. For years she was troubled by the negative media portrayal of the Middle East and yearned to change people’s misperceptions of the region.
Every time she wore Middle Eastern artisan jewelry, particularly from her homeland of Iran, people were often in awe at the beauty and uniqueness of the pieces and were amazed to hear that they indeed came from Iran. Having realized that she could change people’s negative perceptions of the region just by wearing a necklace, she made it a goal to have Middle Eastern jewelry become more accessible. Through so doing, she could expose the general public to the beautiful arts and traditions the region has to offer.
Since Adela had no formal business training prior to joining EWI, she enrolled in the Entrepreneur Training for Success course to gain the necessary knowledge and skills for successfully launching her own venture of importing artisan jewelry from the Middle East. In addition, Adela hopes to have her pieces made by women artisans throughout the region to provide a means for their economic independence and empowerment.
Aside from pursuing this business venture, Adela currently works in contracts and grants administration in the field of international development, and volunteers as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence in the Washington, DC area.
Adelina Perez del Castillo Mena
Event, Portrait, and Fine Art Photographer
Her Project: Work as a professional events photographer and continue her passion for portraiture and fine art photography
Adelina Perez del Castillo Mena was born in Mexico City, Mexico. She arrived in the United States on November 19, 1989 to work for the Inter-American Development Bank. Adelina was originally hired to work in the United States for two years, but worked for the company for seventeen years. She retired in September of 2007 and her current passion and profession is photography. Adelina is pursuing a degree at Northern Virginia Community College majoring in photography.
Adelina embodies three crucial components of success. First, she is brave because she is nine credits away from obtaining a degree. Adelina’s scholastic challenge is math, but she manages to thrive in the rigorous courses. Also, Adelina has no family living in the United States, but continues to stand on her own two feet and prosper in her beloved country.
Secondly, Adelina is humble. She is a magnificent photographer and had an art exhibition about indigenous women at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. The third component is significance. Her art is everlasting and instinctual; she loves to capture the moment and beyond in its natural state.
Her time at Empowered Women International will be spent learning about the mechanisms and nuances of business via coaching classes and mentoring. She wants to understand how to market and price her laborious and loved photography. Also, she wants to gain access to a bigger network of artists. Adelina is a magnificent and passionate women representing unity of art and culture.
Story by Nicole Young
Amy Ruth Odean
Women’s Apparel Designer
Her Project: Establish a business to produce and design women’s clothing
Amy Odean is an exceptionally versatile and multi-faceted artist; with talents ranging from painting, pottery, quilting, dress making, hat design, photography and working with textile arts. Her style reflects the various cultures that have played an integral part of her life since childhood. She has lived on both U.S. coasts, as well as the Kohala region of Hawaii. She currently resides in Takoma Park, MD.
Amy’s vision is to have her own business designing and producing women’s apparel. She has worked hard and tireless for many years supporting other entrepreneurs. Her jobs range from making hand painted silk clothing for an artist to sell at juried art shows, sewing children’s clothing for a cottage industry, production sewing, and factory work making fire-retardant clothing and gear for firefighters.
Amy was introduced to EWI through a chance encounter. A friend referred her to a theatre actress affiliated with EWI who needed a costume made for an upcoming production. Consequently, Amy became involved with EWI and is enrolled in the Entrepreneur for Success training. The success of other artists who have collaborated with EWI offers her encouragement. She is excited to learn strategies to market her products.
Other obligations and circumstances have often made it difficult for Amy to focus on her career. She raised two children as a single Mom, and took various jobs to make ends meet, Amy recently rearranged her life to help a family member, currently works part-time in a restaurant and struggles with paying off major debt in student loans. Although her life is full of uncertainty as she contemplates her future path, she believes that with the help of EWI, the potential exists to turn her products into a viable business and livelihood.
Story by Paula Margus
Brigitta Kral
Creator of All-Natural Bath and Body Products
Her Project: Turn her new Briggy’s Bath & Body Line into a successful and lucrative business selling all-natural handmade products
After being laid off from her job as a senior communications associate for a nonprofit funding collaborative, Brigitta Kral wanted to focus time towards transitioning BrigaBauble, her jewelry line, from a hobby into a profitable business. For three years, Brigitta has created jewelry out of recyclable and repurposed materials, such as using wine corks for necklace pendants and bottle caps for earrings. She also wanted to expand her craft by creating Briggy’s Bath and Body Line, making natural “skin-loving” bath and body products that are eco-friendly.
While Brigitta felt she gained experience selling her jewelry on Etsy and at arts and crafts venues, she wanted to make her business a more viable success. Lacking the direction to do such, it was suggested to her that she contact Marga Fripp, founder of Empowered Women International.
What was supposed to be a 30-minute brainstorming powwow ended up becoming a two-hour long conversation. Brigitta, confessing to Marga her feelings of isolation and hopelessness, remembers Marga’s words to her regarding overcoming those feelings: “Now that you’ve found EWI, you’ll never feel isolated again.” That encouraged Brigitta to become an EWI member, where she offers jewelry-making lessons to other members, and to enroll in the Entrepreneur Training for Success Program.
ETS will be starting in a few weeks, and what Brigitta expects to gain from it is the knowledge to make her business more viable, the skills to deliver a great sales pitch to retailers, and the confidence to become a successful entrepreneur. Brigitta feels she lacks confidence in herself as a businesswoman, yet she feels that ETS will get her on the right track in gaining it.
She is also looking forward to meeting “all of these fabulous women” enrolled in the program. “Meeting the artists of EWI is awe-inspiring for me because their talent is so unfathomable for me,” she says, feeling great admiration for their work. Brigitta is also excited about hearing their stories, since “no one has a boring story in life.” This also pertains to Brigitta, who will have another great story to tell when she graduates from ETS.
Story by Dienna Howard
Elena Nolan
Fine Art Painter
Her Project: Market her art, build a professional artist portfolio and website, and participate in solo and group exhibitions
Born in Russia, Elena Nolan lived in Kazakhstan, south of her birthplace, for 21 years prior to coming to the U.S. in 2005 to build a new life. She developed a love for the arts and painting at a very young age. She uses oil paints as her medium to create breathtaking landscapes, portraits, still life, and expressions of people and their cultures. Elena is indeed a ‘shining light’, as the origin of her name implies.
Although Elena has a solid and impressive education in art, and has exhibited her work in the US, U.K., Russia and Kazakhstan, her path has not been without challenges and hardship. Economic conditions have adversely impacted the art world and art sales. Due to budget cuts and lack of job opportunities with potential for advancement, Elena has been forced to find employment in retail working for minimum wage without health benefits.
Once you view her art you will agree that her talent deserves to be admired and rewarded. Even with a limited support system, she continues to reach out to expand her horizons.
Elena was led to EWI inadvertently through contacts she met in the U.S. She is currently working with EWI to learn how to market her art to reach wider audiences, and is in the process of creating a portfolio to showcase her work, and is reworking her website.
Her goals in collaborating with EWI include networking, and exhibiting her work at luxury hotels, local galleries and restaurants. She is also hoping to obtain a scholarship through EWI to receive additional business training, and ultimately greater exposure of her art work.
Elena’s determination, courage, talent, and ability to shine are paying off. She will be featured in the October issue of Elan magazine, which showcases talented Northern Virginia painters, photographers, sculptors and other artists.
Elena received a scholarship from EWI to attend the Entrepreneur Training for Success Class 2010.
Story by Paula Margus
Elleni Ashine
Social Entrepreneur
Her Project: Introduce fair trade jewelry and coffee from her native country of Ethiopia to the American market
Elleni Ashine is a remarkable woman exemplifying the limitless possibilities of life. She hails from Addis Abba, Ethiopia and arrived in the United States in August of 2007. The catalyst for her journey to the United States was a passion for democracy. Elleni works for the D.C. Language Access Coalition and was recently promoted to a lead health organizer. She built, coordinated, and established the “Health CommUNITY Club” division at D.C. Language Access Coalition. She is the proud mother of a three-year old son who lives in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian artisan and entrepreneur creates jewelry and writes short stories about social change; her goal is to incite social motivation, provocation, and transformation in her listeners, readers, and viewers. She has witnessed turmoil in her nation and vows to improve the lives of her Ethiopian sisters and all African women.
Elleni hopes Empowered Women International will help her professional pursuits of owning a social enterprise aimed at aiding African women with special leadership initiatives in their nations. She also wants to encourage, stimulate, and understand women from diverse countries.
There are four goals she hopes to achieve from the extraordinary Empowered Women International organization: build lasting business relationships and establish a social enterprise, further develop her creative writing skills, empower and motivate people, and make a business plan while creating a customer base. Elleni will achieve all of her aspirations because she is determined, inspired, and motivated to improve the lives of women.
Kim M.
Collage Artist and Card Maker
Her Project: Sell her unique vintage- and Victorian-inspired greeting cards in DC area shops and stores
Kim, who says she pledges her allegiance to California, has lived in Washington, DC for the past fifteen years. Her move into card making was not intentional, but it has now become a great passion. “I’m always the one in the family who sends birthday cards. I wasn’t that crazy about the ones that I bought in the stores, so I started to edit them at home. I remembered how much I liked doing collage in junior high school and I found myself slowly starting to do that on the greeting cards I bought.” As her own art began to increasingly transform the cards, she asked herself why she didn’t just make her own . . . and thus Kim Cards began!
Much of her work features dried flowers and leaves, Victorian-period images, and famous quotes or sayings. One of her favorite things to do is create a greeting card that juxtaposes two messages or has a bit of a twist to it. The example she gives is a card combining the image of a young Victorian woman, looking very elegant and restrained, smelling a flower in a garden, with the message: “Lovely day to start a revolution!”
Kim first learned about Empowered Women International through an acquaintance. She learned about the Entrepreneur Training for Success program after looking at the EWI website; thinking the training seemed ideally suited to someone like her, she immediately enrolled. Kim feels she has already learned many things about presentation and marketing that she had just never thought of before. One of her goals is to learn how to get a fair value for her work: “I would like to see if I can find gently assertive ways to ask for fair prices on my cards. It really takes me a long time to make my cards; I would like to be able to ask for what I’m worth in making them.”
Her goal post-graduation is to access as much of the local market as she can. “What I would really like is lots of independently owned small specialty stationery stores to feature my cards.”
Kwanele Ndlovu
Social Entrepreneur
Project: Start up a non-profit organization to build schools and sponsor education for girls in Zimbabwe
Kwanele Ndlovu’s career aspirations begin and end the same way – with a young Zimbabwean girl yearning for an education.
In 1994, Kwanele, then 22 years old, left her home in Zimbabwe to achieve her lifelong dream of an American education. A thirst for knowledge was instilled in Kwanele – the daughter of two teachers – from a young age, and she was fascinated by the number of colleges and universities available in the United States.
“With the variety and the choices you can just be anything,” she said.
Though Kwanele had some difficulty choosing a major at first, her sister discovered a long forgotten essay that outlined exactly what she wanted out of life: to receive a business degree and to help women.
After putting herself through school and earning an undergraduate computer networking degree from Strayer University, Kwanele decided to check the first item, a graduate degree in business, off that list. There was only one problem – she couldn’t afford it.
However, her tenacity and nerve paid off again. She phoned a Marymount University professor who was looking for a graduate assistant. When he told Kwanele he was still in the process of reviewing resumes, she responded, “Well, I’ll save you the trouble. Just have me work with you.” Impressed by her “feistiness,” the professor met with Kwanele and ultimately chose her for the position. She made the most of it, completing her MBA in 2006.
Today, Kwanele works at Pinnacle, a marketing company in Arlington, Va., and is laying the foundation for her next goal, her own nonprofit organization. Though she hasn’t quite narrowed down the specifics, she does know that the America-based organization will focus on education and economic empowerment for women and girls.
Kwanele’s father, the first black principal of his school in Zimbabwe, has already shown her that the two go hand-in-hand.
“My father came from extreme, extreme poverty,” Kwanele said. “But I saw how he moved from extreme poverty and, through education, was able to change our legacy. It opened a new world.”
She will prepare herself to open similar doors for others by continuing her own education in EWI’s Entrepreneur Training for Success program. Kwanele, a self-described “social entrepreneur,” hopes the program will allow her to narrow her vision, build a social network and gain confidence in herself and her endeavors.
Ultimately, Kwanele would like to synthesize all that she has learned – in school and in life – and dedicate herself to full-time nonprofit work.
“I just feel a responsibility now that I’m done with school,” she said. “I’ve seen what it is to suffer years wanting an education. I think it makes sense to go back where I came from to help.”
Through what she hopes will be a long-lasting organization, Kwanele will share an important lesson with new generations of girls and young women.
“People can take away many things,” she said, “but they can never take away your education.”
Story by Kaylee Kebort
Paula Margus
Art Promoter
Her Project: Establish a side-business to provide artists and art entrepreneurs with promotional, marketing, and literary services
Paula Margus began her relationship with Empowered Women International (EWI) as a volunteer writer and career mentor. Within a few short months, Paula added EWI member and student in the organization’s Entrepreneurship Training for Success (ETS) program to her relationship with EWI. It may seem an odd transition from career mentor to student, but Paula finds evolution — not devolution — in the change.
Paula started volunteering with EWI while unemployed from the information technology (IT) field. “Writing new member profiles as an EWI volunteer got me back into my first professional love: writing creative nonfiction to promote people’s talents and advocate for their success. Then, helping these amazing women artists with their marketing materials and photographs of their work made me reflect on my own career. It wasn’t long before I realized how personally unfulfilled I have been without a creative outlet.”
Faced with this realization, and a growing recognition of her own artistic talents, Paula decided to take the next step and enroll in the ETS program. By taking time to focus on a rewarding side business, Paula is close to achieving her original goals for enrolling in the course: “To identify the most profitable service I can market and sell, determine my target audience and how to reach them, and benefit from the network of support that EWI provides.”
As a member, volunteer, and future ETS graduate, Paula will continue to receive the organization’s network of support, as do all EWI members. Her strong passion for being involved with other cultures will also continue to be cultivated through her involvement with EWI.
Story by Brigitta Kral
Sydnei SmithJordan
Visual Artist and Painter
Her Project: Establish her own business to sell her designs on various apparel and fashion accessories
“Art is my escape,” says Sydnei SmithJordan as she sits down for our interview. Listening to her life’s journey about her childhood and early adulthood makes it easy to understand why she needed an “escape.”
Sydnei, born on August 23, 1971, the oldest of 4 children, grew up in Durham, North Carolina. She lived in an orphanage until she was 21. She took comfort in drawing, doodling, coloring—whatever allowed her to create a different world than the one she lived in.
In 1999, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was surprised to learn of the diagnosis; she thought she was suffering from a bad case of heartache. Sydnei went through chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. The cancer went into remission in 2003 but returned in 2008, requiring her to have a double mastectomy. Hearing her doctor’s words at age 37, she was terrified. The news pushed her to make amends with a lot of people in her life because she didn’t think she would survive the surgery. But she did survive.
One would think that Sydnei couldn’t have accomplished much in her life when just surviving took all her energy. But Sydnei is an accomplished artist. She studied fine arts at the College of Design & Architecture at Santa Monica College. She earned a master’s degree from Rhode Island School of Design. Today, she is a freelance artist and illustrator. Since 1995, she’s created various works for both commercial and private patrons — primarily oil paintings but also multi-media works. Her works have been collected by Sylvester Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg, Patti La Belle and Denzel Washington.
Her paintings reflect a range of life experiences — love, life, travel, experiences common to us all. Her paintings are highly personal yet universal, touching all things that directly relate to humanity. She explores the spectrum of human emotions through the use of the grays and brilliant colors. She demonstrates how to express one’s life experiences—joy and pain—though artwork.
To nurture her skills as a businesswoman, Sydnei came to the Entrepreneur Training for Success Program, developed by EWI. She has artistic ability but needed to hone her skills on promoting her art, doing business plans and pricing. She will graduate from EWI’s program this month. Through the program, Sydnei learned to categorize her art, completed a “full” portfolio for two clients and connected with her “sisters” in her class.
Hearing about her journey, one word leaps to mind—survivor. No matter what life offers her on her path, she’ll show up the next day. The human spirit to survive is alive and well within Sydnei. It flashes in her eyes, speaks through her lips and finds expression through her hands. She makes no excuses—“I am who I am, I cannot separate myself from my painful journey nor the immense joy and they all show up in my art.”
Story by Sunanda Holmes
Tacha Coleman Parr
Jazz Singer and Songwriter
Her Project: Work as a performing vocalist with regular appearances in DC and the surrounding areas, as well as record two new CDs
As a young girl training for a career in music, Tacha Coleman Parr was once told by her choral teacher that she did not have the voice for R&B and Blues, and that her 6 octave soprano voice was better suited for Classical music. Tacha is now an accomplished Jazz singer, who has had her own band, has performed all over DC, and has a rich repertoire of old and new Jazz music. She is also a loving wife and a mother of 3 children, looking for a way to re-establish her music career.
Born in North Carolina, Tacha came to DC for school, and began a Blues and Jazz career here, the nation’s capital. In the beginning, she performed with several local R&B artists and wedding bands, and although her audiences appreciated her ability to imitate some of the popular R&B and Pop artists, Tacha wanted to do more. She wanted her music to have a personality of its own. She had been developing her musical style all along, subtly mixing different influences – resulting in a blend of Jazz uniquely her own. Tacha later studied Jazz under several well-known Jazz performers, such as Ronnie Wells, Ron Elliston, Wayne Wilentz, Giacomo Gates and Rebecca Parris, further honing her music style.
Tacha’s goal now is to launch her début CD. She has been compiling music and doing the groundwork necessary to launch it on a national scale. She, however, felt she was not equipped with enough business know-how to start a venture of such magnitude alone. “I want to be a musician, not a business-person,” she says, “but artists do not have the luxury of wearing only one hat.” She approached EWI a few months ago to get help to further develop her business skills. She enrolled in the Entrepreneur Training for Success Program of EWI, which trains women entrepreneurs in crucial aspects of starting and running a small business. Before she approached EWI, she says, she felt very frustrated since she seemed to be covering the same ground professionally. “That’s when I knew I needed to do things differently.”
She attended a workshop at the DC Arts and Humanities Center for Jazz artists, where she heard about the training offered by EWI to entrepreneurs. “It is important for performers to be their own business-persons,” she says. “At EWI, I am hoping to get a good business foundation so that I can reach the next level of performance.” Tacha is looking to not only get trained in basic business skills, but also learn to market her skills as an artist, get information on how and where to look for venture funding, as well as get some basic mentoring from people who have been involved with starting and running ventures of their own. “Whatever the type of business you want to start, you need someone to tell you what works in the end,” she says.
Story by Arunjana Das
Yarmila Aragon
Business Entrepreneur
Her Project: Open a high-end Scandinavian bar and restaurant that features a variety of music, poetry, and artwork
There is no box within which Yarmila Aragon’s life of fantastical adventures and living nightmares could be neatly packed and filed away. Her life is too fluid to be confined within 4 cardboard walls and a top—or any walls. Yarmila has lived on three continents and in 10 countries, fluently speaks four language (and can read and write in more than three languages), danced professionally for the Royal Flanders Ballet (Belgium) before her career was cut short by an injury, and worked full-time as an interpreter for the United Nations and the State Department.
During her tenure at the UN, Yarmila was stationed in Kosovo in the early days of the UN peacekeeping mission in the area. Yarmila remembers that “Sarajevo was being evacuated and we had to walk through 15 miles of land mines. I didn’t mind that so much.” What haunted Yarmila was the constant feeling of helplessness as she witnessed the pain and suffering endured by people on both sides of the conflict. Yarmila felt powerless to help the people in the region. This was not the first time in her life that Yarmila had felt this way.
When she was 12, Yarmila and her family relocated to her father’s birthplace: Panama. As a native son and investigative journalist, Yarmila’s father was driven to expose what life was like in Panama under General Noriega’s rule. One day, says Yarmila, “my father was taken…disappeared…tortured.” Three years later, when her father was finally released, Yarmila was 15, and the family faced yet another forced relocation. They were headed to Sweden—the only country willing to take them. For Yarmila, though, this move was different; it has had a lasting positive impact on her hopes and dreams.
Today, Yarmila works as a freelance interpreter for U.S. government agencies and the UN. Last December her life had once again been derailed; this time it was from spinal surgery. Ever looking forward, Yarmilla spent her recovery time developing her entrepreneurial dream of running her own elite Scandinavian restaurant, café and art gallery.
Wanting to learn how to achieve this dream is what brought Yarmila to Empowered Women International (EWI), and her decision to enroll in EWI’s Entrepreneurship Training for Success (ETS) program. Specifically, says Yarmilla, “I want to see what the other women in the program are doing; how they plan to face the business/financial challenges they have. And, of course, I want to learn how to become a successful small business owner, and I’m confident that I will learn this through the ETS program.”
Story by Brigitta Kral
About our Volunteer Writers for Students Stories
Arunjana Das works as a consultant for the World Bank. She has a Masters degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from the American University, Washington, DC, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India. She has worked as a journalist and a freelance writer for business and technology publications in the past, and currently enjoys writing on a volunteer basis. She is also conducting research on the prevalence of cases of infibulation (female circumcision) among immigrant communities in the United States. With a predilection for period literature and movies, she enjoys reading (and re-reading) the works of Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, among others. Being an Indian, she enjoys savoring Indian food, although abhors making any!
Brigitta Kral has worked for more than a decade as a full-time and freelance writer, editor and project manager in communications and marketing Brigitta, an experienced teacher of English for both native and non-native speakers, is also a jewelry designer, and creator of handmade bath and body goodies. Brigitta earned her BA in English with honors from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, her MA in Teaching (Secondary English) with honors from Johns Hopkins University, and her Trinity College (London) Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Certificate from Oxford TEFL Prague.
Dienna Howard graduated from Buffalo State College with a BA in theatre arts. She also has a history with writing, working on both her high school and college papers as an editor and a writer, as well as taking journalism courses in college. She is currently based in the DC metro area where she devotes her time volunteering for numerous organizations, such as The Studio Theatre and Greater DC Cares. In her free time, Dienna takes Tae Kwon Do, which she has recently received her black belt in.
Kaylee Kebort is originally from Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Gannon University in Erie, PA in 2009 with a degree in Criminal Justice and minors in Spanish and Forensics. Kaylee then moved to the DC area, after procuring a job with the federal government. She currently lives in Arlington with her one-eyed rescued cat, Sammi.
Nicole Young obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ferrum College in May 2005. While there she majored in History with a minor in Political Science. Currently, she is pursuing a degree in Global Politics via online coursework at Regent University. Presently, Nicole is learning French and her passions include reading, traveling, and writing.
Paula Margus incorporates her professional career in quality assurance into many aspects of her life. She is continually identifying improvement opportunities with whatever she encounters. Paula enjoys working with immigrant artists to tell their stories and portray their work through writing and photography. She is very passionate about travel, learning about other cultures, cuisine, music, theatre, art, and animals. She currently resides in Falls Church, VA with two felines who take great pleasure in outsmarting her with their exceptional ingenuity.
Sunanda Holmes is an Indian-born lawyer residing in the Washington DC area with her family (3 children) and works for the Johns Hopkins University. She volunteers with a number of organizations in her free time and is looking forward to working with EWI more in the future.