The Search for a Fiscal Sponsor Begins

You probably could have guessed that starting a business is...a tricky business.  It involves a level of hoop-jumping that three ESL teachers weren't really prepared for.  One of our first business buys was Non-Profits for Dummies, I kid you not.  We've learned that a good way to buy time to figure everything out is to first find a "fiscal sponsor."  This would be a larger, more established organization (one, ideally, with a similar purpose) which would agree to be our parent organization until we can get ourselves figured out enough to be on our own.It's a quick way to get legally recognized as a business so that we can continue having sales while we work on things like writing our business plan and hiring our artisans.  We've got some meetings this coming week with some people who we hope will be able to help us convince a certain organization to be our fiscal sponsor.  I'm hoping we can get this done quickly so that we can have more local sales and begin selling online ASAP.

Meet Our Artisans

Due to bad weather and a lot of people being out sick, we had a small but cozy meeting of crafters this Saturday.  I got the pleasure of sitting with each one and chatting (mostly via translator) with them about their life in order to put up a personal profile of each person.  It was nice to learn a little more about some of our participants.  As I said, many of them didn't make it this weekend so I'll be adding more as they come, but here's a start.

Goma is our resident translator for the Nepali/Bhutanese attendees.  She was born in Bhutan, but was forced to move to a refugee camp in Nepal when she was young (more on the history of that conflict to follow in a future post).  Like all our recent arrivals from that part of the world, she spent the last 18 years in the refugee camp.  As refugees they were not allowed to work in Nepal, but they found ways to make a little money and keep themselves busy within the camp.  Goma attended and completed high school in the camp and learned to knit hats and scarves to sell.  She came to the U.S. in April 2009 and has been able to find part-time work here in a factory.  In the future she'd like to go to college and study to become a nurse.

Deoka (pronounced Day-Oh-Kah) is Goma's mother.  She has graciously allowed us to use her living room for our meetings as it happens to be centrally located for many of the participants.  She and her husband and five children spent 18 years in the refugee camp in Nepal.  Their family came to the U.S. in April, though only three of the five (adult) children came.  She did not attend any school growing up but is now able to come regularly to ESL classes at World Relief.  With her very limited knowledge of English she has been unable to find work here in the U.S., though other members of her family, like Goma, are working.  With the money from her sales she'd like to save up to buy some new clothes.

Dil Maya (on the right) was born and grew up in Bhutan.  She learned to knit from her mother when she was ten years old.  She's one of our most accomplished knitters.  In the picture she's showing Miream (Iraqi) how to start a scarf.  She's been able to make a wide variety of knitted items with different styles and patterns.  It's always exciting to find out what she's done lately.  Like the others, she moved with her husband and kids to the Nepali refugee camp 18 years ago.  They and their four children came to to the U.S. in June 2009.  She's currently studying English and job-readiness in the hopes of getting a job here soon.

Hari M is another from the Nepal/Bhutan contingent.  She and her husband and five of their seven (!) kids came to the U.S. in January.  Her other two children are married and live in New York and California, respectively.  She learned to knit from her friends in the refugee camp in Nepal.  She also is studying English and hopes to someday get a job here.

Miream was part of a Chaldean Christian minority in Iraq.  She and her husband and three grown children came to the U.S. in May 2009. Unlike many other refugees, their family didn't spend any time in a refugee camp.  We suspect that they came as a result of religious persecution, but since Miream only speaks Chaldean, it's hard to find a translator who is able to ask.  She's one of our most faithful attenders and seems perfectly happy to sit and work together with a room full of people with whom she can't converse.

This is only who attended this weekend.  Our biggest group is currently from Bhutan/Nepal, but we've got some ladies from Sudan and hopefully a group from Burma who will also be attending soon.  As we get to be too many for Deoka's living room, we'll have to decide what to do next--perhaps open another living room location elsewhere?  If you'd be interested in volunteering on Saturday mornings, let us know.

First things first.

Resilient Crafts is a non-profit organization which works to empower refugees resettled in the Chicago area.  We provide refugees with a method of earning a supplemental income through the creation and sale of traditional crafts.  We also give crafters English lessons for sales and financial literacy lessons for understanding taxes and saving.  Our weekly meetings also have the side benefit of giving the crafters a community of friends from several different cultures.

There are three main organizers of this non-profit.  They are Sue, Heather, and Kara.

Sue is a specialist in Adult ESL Literacy, which means she works with refugees and immigrants who had little or no formal education in their home country.  She was born and raised in the Chicago area and worked for two and a half years in a refugee camp in the Philippines with Southeast-Asian refugees.  She’s been working with World Relief for over 20 years.

Heather is an adult ESL teacher who has taught a range of levels at World Relief.  She’s currently teaching a refugee orientation and ESL class with World Relief in Aurora.  Prior to that, she spent a year in Thailand working in a Thai orphanage.  She was also a volunteer coordinator for a homeless shelter in Indiana for seven years.

Kara teaches Literacy and Job-Readiness at World Relief and Level 4 ESL at the College of DuPage.   She’s taught a range of ESL levels in the past few years.  She’s been teaching at World Relief since the last semester of her grad degree in Intercultural Studies and TESOL at Wheaton in 2007.  She’s an MK who lived in Liberia, Zambia, Suriname, and New York growing up.  She's also the resident blogger for this venture.