AAFSW Professional Fellowship Awards
Spousal employment remains an important aspect of AAFSW’s advocacy. In the 50 years of this organization’s existence, and with the subsequent establishment of the Family Liaison Office 32 years ago, we have inched forward on providing Embassy jobs with benefits, negotiating more bilateral work agreements and de facto arrangements and providing support for job hunting on the local economy. However, despite improvements, there is still no silver bullet for employment. Advancing two careers in the mobile Foreign Service lifestyle can be daunting, and we recognize that not all spouses will be able to work in their professional area. However, Foreign Service spouses have always been creative, intelligent and resourceful.
As part of celebrating AAFSW’s 50 years of advocacy and service, we have encouraged AAFSW members who are entrepreneurial and wish to start up mobile businesses overseas, to apply for a limited number of fellowships (09 State 124971) to help them move forward. With the funding provided by donors for this purpose, we awarded 5 small fellowships to AAFSW members serving overseas who outlined their business proposals following the cable guidelines. We hope that our small financial contributions will help to launch the portable businesses of the 5 awardees. In addition, we wish all of the AAFSW members who demonstrated their resourcefulness and creativity in outlining their business ventures, every success and luck in establishing their businesses.
We reviewed a total of 16 applications from AAFSW members who described their plans for portable small business projects. A committee comprised of AAFSW Board members Patti Ryan and Faye Barnes, AAFSW member and former FLO Employment Program Coordinator Katie Hokenson, and current FLO Employment Program Officer, Melissa Sagun reviewed the applications and met to select the winners. The committee considered the following guidelines in selecting the grant winners:
a. Creativity of the project and the detail and commitment for the business start up project as outlined.
b. Correlation between the proposed activity, the professional development of the candidate and the long term feasibility of maintaining the business in a transient lifestyle.
c. Where applicable, a connection between the proposed activity and other effort(s) on the part of the candidate that will benefit the Foreign Service or international community.
d. Unavailability of employment options in the candidate's profession at her/his current post of assignment.
The committee selected five winners:
Joshua Halpern, Beijing, China for “Onthego Education, Inc” a business that will create and sell books, toys, travel products and online games to improve the skills of US youth ages 8-12, in areas related to cultural literacy, language acquisition and global competency. The first product, “The Culture Agents: Mission Beijing ” will include a printed book, online content and a mobile application that teaches U.S. youth about Beijing, China from the comfort of their own home, or on the go. Josh was awarded a grant of $1,500.00 to assist with the legal and professional fees in establishing his business and marketing costs.
Michelle Ciani, Mexico City/Santiago, was selected for her proposed business as a Special Education Consultant for special needs families living abroad. She is a trained and certified K-12 Special Education teacher, fluent in English, Spanish and French. Her business will provide expertise and support in English and Spanish for the local and ex-pat community at post. She was awarded $1450.00 to purchase a special needs library and to organize special community outreach events to promote her services.
Christine Yonushonis, Delhi, was awarded a grant of $1000.00 to establish a home studio for teaching quilting classes. The funding will go to purchase equipment such as sewing machines, cutters and specialized equipment, notions, and a large table. Christine has also identified an NGO and will use equipment from her studio to teach rural women pro bono how to quilt and market items.
Adanys Parliament, Barcelona, was selected for her home-based travel consulting business plan. She will focus in three specialized markets: community service based “voluntourism”; facilitating travel for disabled persons; and eco-tourism. Adanys identified a growing sector of the global travel industry and set out her goals for developing her business over three years. We awarded her a $1000.00 grant to off set the costs of the insurance requirements for her business.
Bradley Scott, Dhaka, was awarded a grant to assist his development of a website portal for American Employee Associations from around the world to share information and merchandise. The portal will have various e-commerce options that will enable the participating associations to sell their logo items online to eligible buyers. The $1040.00 grant will pay for a business license fee and membership in Authorize.net.
All 16 AAFSW members who submitted proposals deserve credit, recognition and support for their ingenuity and the time and effort utilized to develop business proposals that are portable, and fulfill a need within the community. Congratulations and best of luck to Mitch Blaser, Port Louis; Kristin Burkhalter, Capetown; Leah Evans, Quito; Nissa Felton, Beijing; Carlos Gallardo, Podgorica-La Paz; Keiko Kono, Taipei; Tolkyn Martin, Dushanbe; Julie Mendez, Santiago; Caroline Nolan, Jerusalem; Jennifer Otto, Rangoon; and Anna Sparks, San Jose.