Grand Opening: Microenterprise Program Success Story

This weekend was the grand opening of the Family Choice Salon, run by one of our microenterprise program clients, Ms. Kumari Ghimery.

Ms. Ghimery came to the US 5 years ago as an asylee, fleeing persecution in Bhutan because she is a member of the Nepalese ethnic minority in Bhutan.

When she came, RWN gave her a job as receptionist, but her real dream was to open her own salon.

She attended the RWN Business Plan Training classes, went to cosmetology school and worked in other salons to gain experience and build a clientele. All along, took microloans for RWN to help her move to the next step.

In case that wasn't enough, she also got married, bought a house in the Atlanta, Georgia suburbs, and started a family.

Finally this summer, with the help of another RWN microloan, she was able to open her own salon:

Family Choice Salon
3153 Sugarloaf Parkway
Suite 107
Lawrenceville, GA 30045
Phone # 770.558.2134
http://www.familychoicesalon.com/

It's open and airy with hair cutting stations in the main area and a room for facials and a room for waxing off the hall in the back. She has three employees to provide those services, while she concentrates of cutting hair and managing the salon.

The salon is located in suburban Gwinnett County, the fastest growing county in the US. It is a suburb of the Atlanta, Georgia area, with many highly rated schools and affordable housing. Therefore, many refugees and immigrants buy their first homes in Gwinnett.

This is a wonderful success story. Not only has she rebuilt her life, but she is contributing to the Atlanta economy and providing employment for others. What a bright spot in a discouraging economy.

Congratulations to Ms. Kumari Ghimery!

UNIFEM/USA 2008 Conference June 21 and 22 in Atlanta

RWN will be participating at the UNIFEM/USA 2008 Annual Meeting and Conference: Creating Change...Improving Lives, Saturday, June 21 and Sunday, June 22. It will be held at the SunTrust Conference Center, 303 Peachtree Street, NE, Atlanta, Georgia.

RWN's executive director will participate on the panel Microfinance: Empowering Women Worldwide. Additionally 6 of RWN's Microenterprise clients -- refugee and immigrant women entrepreneurs -- will have vendor booths at the marketplace.

UNIFEM is the women’s fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programs and strategies to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality. Placing the advancement of women’s human rights at the center of all of its efforts, UNIFEM focuses its activities on four strategic areas:

• Reducing women’s poverty and exclusion;
• Ending violence against women;
• Halting the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls;
• Supporting women’s leadership in governance and post-conflict reconstruction.

To learn more or register for the UNIFEM/USA conference, go to http://www.unifemusa.org/

Board Member Anne Olson honored for lifetime of service

Board member Anne Olson was honored at the 5th Annual Georgia's Legacy: Older Women Active and Alive Past Sixty-Five Awards Luncheon. It was presented by the Georgia Commission on Women, the Georgia Women's Institute, and the Georgia Osteoporosis Initiative.

As described in the program, the luncheon honors

ten outstanding Georgia women who, though past the usual age of retirement, are
still significantly involved and productive

It was a great event and very inspiring for those of us under the age of sixty-five, to see vibrant and vital women into their 80's who are continuing a lifetime of achievement. It certainly gave me something to strive for.

Here is Ms. Olson's biographical statement from the program. At RWN we are extremely fortunate to have someone as talented, committed, and accomplished on our board of directors.

Anne Olson, a feminist/scholar/activist, focusing on gender economic and racial
human rights, retired in 1999 from Emory University School of Nursing, where she
taught nutritiion, after working twenty-five years as federal program
administration for Georgia Department of Education. A member of Atlanta Living Wage Steering Committee, she continues efforts to raise the minimum wage, especially for home healthcare workers, though the Georgia Legislature has yet to approve it! She serves as a planner, fundraiser and facilitator for the leadership team of Project South. She worked on logistics and outreach for last summer's event sponsored by the US Social Forum, attended by 15,000 grass roots organizers, coordinated Amnesty International's Stop Violence against Women campaign, serves on the boards of Women Watch Afrika and Refugee Women's Network. She has worked on Poor People's Day at the Capitol and the Up & Out of Poverty Coalition since 1999. She received the Gerry Conroy Human Rights Activist Award from the Georgia Coalition on Hunger "for her tireless work on human rights, gender equity, racial and economic justice." Anne lives in East Lake Commons, edits the communtiy newsletter, and participates in the Neighborhood Connections and Affordability Committees. She has two children and three grandchildren who live in Boston and West Palm Beach.

RWN on WRFG 89.3 FM

On April 16, RWN was on the radio in Atlanta.

WRFG (W Radio Free Georgia) is the local community radio station where the DJs are all volunteers. A few of RWN's past and present board members and staff have been hosting radio shows on WRFG for many many years.

Yesterday I was the guest on Dr. Asha's show, Health Issues Today. I thought I would have only 10 minutes of her half hour show but we ended up talking the whole time. Time just flew by.

She asked me who were refugees, what issues do refugees face, what resources are available to refugees, etc.

These are issues we address at RWN so it was very easy to talk about.

This is the takeaway message I wanted the listeners to get:

Yes, refugees have endures incredible trauma and hardship -- war, violence, and women deal with sexual assault during the war and in the refugee camps -- and now they are in their new country and working hard to rebuild a life while dealing with culture shock, language barriers, as well as the past trauma. And this is a testimony of the strength of refugee women. And I want people to think positively about refugee women as they rebuild their lives, their families and their and our communities here and now.

New Board Member: Sabrina Shams DeJoannis

RWN is very happy to introduce our newest board member, Ms. Sabrina Shams DeJoannis, engineering and financial analyst at the Georgia Power Company.

Ms. DeJoannis has been a trailblazer from a very early age. She is the first woman in her Bangladeshi family to leave home without being married. She immigrated to the US to pursue her education, and now she works as a woman in the male-dominated engineering field.

This drive to excel is evident during her tenure as president of the Atlanta section of the Society of Women Engineers from July 2005 to June 2007. In that time, she doubled the number of members and in 2006 alone, this newly energized chapter served 1000 middle and high school girls in Atlanta. She now serves as the Southeast Region Treasurer until June 2008. Clearly she is committed to increasing the number of women and girls studying, working, and succeeding in science and technology.

Georgia Power recognizes her leadership potential. She was selected as the first candidate to the first of its kind developmental rotational assignment in SCS Finance, working as a financial analyst to understand the business dimension of her company. Georgia Power is also funding her pursuit of a Master’s in Business Administration. After 2 years as a financial analyst, she will return to power delivery engineering to assume a leadership position.

Ms. Shams DeJoannis is also a graduate of the Destiny Fund, a program offered by the Atlanta Women's Foundation to develop women's philanthropy.

RWN is indeed fortunate to have such talent and dedication to community service on our board of directors.

We are fortunate indeed to

Congratulations to Ruth Lomo of Memphis, Tennessee

Ms. Ruth Lomo will be honored Sunday at the 24th Women of Achievement Awards Celebration in Memphis, Tennessee for her work with the the International Community of Refugee Women and Children.

RWN is quite proud of Ms. Lomo, a refugee from Sudan, and a graduate of our Leadership Training program and we extend our congratulations to her.

An article about Ms. Lomo and the award celebration can be seen at http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/mar/27/outstanding/ and is copied below.

2008 awards celebrate inspirational and highly accomplished local women
By Fredric Koeppel
Thursday, March 27, 2008

When Ruth Lomo arrived in Memphis in 2001, she brought her five children, the six children of her dead sisters, another orphan not related to her family and the skills in carpentry she used in refugee camps after she fled in 1990 from Sudan, her native country.

Struggling with the language and to make a living, learning the ins-and-outs of life in an alien culture and the mysteries of navigating her children's schools -- and watching the families of other refugee single mothers confront the same problems -- inspired Lomo to create the International Community of Refugee Women and Children in 2003.

The organization has been centered since October 2007 at the Memphis Leadership Foundation, a nondenominational ministry aimed at improving the lives of urban children and their families. Lomo's program provides after-school tutoring to help refugee children with their homework, offers classes in English for adults and aid in coping with the procedures and traditions of a strange country.

For that effort, Lomo is one of seven women who will be honored Sunday at the 24th Women of Achievement Awards Celebration. The category of Lomo's award is Initiative, "for a woman who seized the opportunity to use her talents and created her own future."

Howard Eddings, president of the Memphis Leadership Foundation, where the Refugee Empowerment Program is an umbrella organization for several refugee programs, praised Lomo's dedication and selflessness.

"I think her passion for the work she's doing, and the compassion for the people she serves really speak volumes for what she has accomplished with few resources," said Eddings. "She really desires for each person she comes in contact with to take care of themselves and yet be able to take advantage of all the opportunities available here."

The Women of Achievement Awards 2008 will be held at the Holiday Inn-University of Memphis, 3700 Central, beginning with a buffet reception at 4 p.m. Tickets are $20; deadline for reservations is Friday. Call 458-6701 for more information or to purchase tickets.
This year's awards are dedicated to Wanda Martin, president of Women of Achievement Inc. from 1999 to 2001, who died Dec. 2, 2007.

The other categories and winners of the 2008 Women of Achievements Awards are:
Heritage, "for a woman of generations past whose achievements still enrich our lives" -- Florence McIntyre (1879-1963), first director of Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, head of the Free Art School and longtime local art teacher.

Steadfastness, "for a woman with a lifetime of achievement" -- Carolyn Gates, 17-year Shelby County commissioner, first woman to serve as chair of the County Commission, founding member of the Salvation Army Auxiliary and Dogwood Village (now Youth Villages).

Determination, "for a woman who solved a glaring problem despite widespread inertia, apathy or ignorance around her" -- Rebecca Jane Edwards, founder of the Cultural Development Foundation of Memphis, dedicated to expanding diversity in artistic performance and audience, particularly for low- and moderate-income communities.

Courage, "for a woman who, facing active opposition, backed an unpopular cause in which she deeply believed" -- Corinne Derenburger, founder of Ryan's Hope for Family and Friends, an organization that provides support for families with children who have severe physical and mental disabilities.

Heroism, "for a woman whose heroic spirit was tested and shown as a model to all in Shelby County and beyond" -- Ashley Sanders, who at the age of 18, in March 2007, saved the life of a woman who had been shot in the back during a carjacking.

Vision, "for a woman whose sensitivity to women's needs led her to tremendous achievements for women" -- Dr. Phyllis Betts, director of the Center for Community Building and Neighborhood Action and associate director of the Center for Research on Women at the University of Memphis and a founder of the Memphis Area Women's Council.

Lomo and her family lived in refugee camps in Zaire, Uganda and Kenya. Christians from the south of Sudan, they fled the war-torn country after Islamic rebels attacked their town.
"You're only supposed to stay in the refugee camps temporarily," Lomo, 38, said this week, sitting in the living room of her apartment on North Highland.

"If there is no peace, the U.N. screens cases to see why people cannot go back to their country. We came to Memphis through the Catholic Charities organization."

Lomo acquired leadership skills early in life. In Sudan, she worked for a women's self-help program. Trained as a carpenter, she ran a workshop teaching women carpentry skills so they could support themselves. In the refugee camp in Kenya, she was elected as the leader of her group.

In Memphis, she said, "I had to struggle helping my children with their homework. We, as refugee parents, cannot give our children the kind of support that American parents can give. I got tutors for my children through Second Presbyterian Church, and in my heart I thought, 'Why can't I share this with other refugee children?' " Lomo's children range from 8 to 19, with the oldest now at Christian Brothers University. The others attend Evangelical Christian School.
Thus, Lomo started the after-school program with 12 children at Leawood Baptist Church. Five years later, the program helps 160 to 170 refugee students, holding two sessions between 3 and 7 p.m., Monday through Thursday. There is now a full-time staff with a program director and an educational specialist. Memphis Leadership Foundation provides the space and fund-raising support.

Since its first celebration, Women of Achievement Awards have gone to nearly 150 recipients. For information, visit womenofachievement.org.

March 28 Shero: Augusta Savage

(February 29, 1892 - March 26, 1962)

Augusta Savage was an African American sculptor, the first director of the Harlem Community Art enter (1937) and exhibitor in the 1939 World's Fair. Her sculpture "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was destroyed when the Fair closed because no money could be found to cast it in bronze.

One of the first women to study sculpture at Cooper Union, she opened the Savage School of Arts and Crafts in Harlem and in 1939, founded the Salon of Contemporary Negro Art. She was one of the first modern sculptors to depice sympathetic and realistic portrayals of African features in her work.