New EFM Amy Pratt has recently started a blog called Global Spouses – check it out here: http://globalspouses.blogspot.com/.
This is her mission statement: to facilitate the opportunity to patronize spouse owned businesses within the Foreign Service by building a business network. Many spouses would like the opportunity to use their skills in a fulfilling career while overseas but not every country offers employment opportunities. This blog will showcase the spouses who have created their own job opportunities and give Foreign Service members easy access to these businesses. The Foreign Service is very much like a large extended family; let’s do our best to support one another.
If you are a Trailing Spouse and would like your business included send her an email. You get a free listing for your business and you’ll be in a network of similar minded entrepreneurs in the Foreign Service.
AAFSW has a running list of business and professional websites here. The blog Diplomatic Pickle also has a side bar listing FS entrepreneurs. But there are a lot more out there who are not listed – photojournalists like this one, freelance writers, personal chefs, personal trainers, pastry chefs, accountants, life coaches, executive coaches, etc., etc. This might be the first real attempt to actually build a networked blogs of Foreign Service entrepreneurs. I think it’s a marvelous thing! And if a conversation can get going, imagine the possibilities …
I asked Amy, the seamstress turned blogger what got her started on this. Amy said that she thought of a blog when she began reading about the excitement and fears of newly minted FSO spouses. She also said that she joined a few FS online discussions and one of the main concerns of the spouses was whether or not they would be able to find fulfilling careers, as well as concerns about living on one income.
Amy:
"Though this is my first experience as an FSO spouse, I have been trailing my journalist husband all over the US for the past 15 years and know what it is like to look for fulfilling work. Four years ago I decided I didn't want to have to reinvent myself professionally every few years so I thought of something that would earn money and fulfill me professionally. The result was a small at home business: Sweet Wee Bairn. I started making and selling breastfeeding aprons online and within 3 months was earning enough money to make our mortgage payment. I cannot tell you how that transformed me. I became incredibly proud of myself and more independent, etc. It was just a good feeling.
I am also a big fan of buying locally and supporting the community in which I live which is how I came up with the idea of the Global Spouses Blog. I am now part of a larger global community and want to support it. I wanted to know who was selling what, where or offering which services to whom and wanted very much to keep the $$ in my new FSO family but couldn't find a directory so [I] made my own."
I hope you’ll stop by and lend your support to Global Spouses.
1 comment:
That is a fabulous idea!
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