Feature We followed our hearts Anyone in business, from your local newsagent to Richard Branson, will agree that to make it work you must be willing to take a chance and determine to never give up. Here, three women tell us how they used their heads and their hearts to rise to the challenge. |
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In 2002 Tabitha Cameron (25) from Gifford in East Lothian lost her 17-year-old brother Peter, known as Pedro, in a tragic road accident. He’d passed his driving test just two months earlier and, on that fateful night in May, had driven two friends to a music gig in Glasgow. On the way home his car hit a lamppost. Peter was killed instantly. Despite strong support from family and friends, Tabitha took her brother’s death hard. A third year psychology student at the time, she gave up her university course and even turned to drink and drugs in an attempt to blot out her devastation. Gradually though, she began picking herself back up. “I’d been astonished to see how much he was missed, not only by our family and his fiancée Kirsten, but also his friends, people his own age,” explains Tabitha. Sensing that, like her, they were also suffering grief, Tabitha trawled through psychology books and Internet sites to see if there was somewhere they could go for support. While there was plenty of material for older people she discovered there was no major service or support network specifically aimed at helping young adults who’d suffered bereavement. So Tabitha decided to set up her own charity organisation, which she named the Pedro Project in memory of her brother. And now she’s back finishing her psychology degree, which she hopes will come in useful for her work with the Project. “There are no words to describe the pain I felt after Peter’s death. Setting up the charity was my way of dealing with it,” explains Tabitha. “I channelled my grief into developing a service so young adults can talk to their peers about bereavement. I feel it’s a tribute to the wonderful person Peter was.” Starting the charity entailed more work than she’d ever envisaged. “It was incredibly challenging. I had to put together a full business plan and go to the Charity Regulator to present the Project’s aims and how they could be achieved. Because we’re working with potentially vulnerable people we must have policies in place to safeguard ourselves. “We raised a couple of thousand pounds from a balloon race and Christmas raffle to get us kick started. Then it took us a year to design and put the website together.” Now Tabitha is in the process of setting up monthly support group meetings in Edinburgh, which she hopes will eventually spread out across the country. She has been filmed for a Channel 4 documentary, to be shown in schools and colleges, about her loss and how she dealt with it by setting up the Project. And her endeavours were also recognised recently when she was named as a finalist in the NatWest Everywoman Awards. “It has been difficult but I’m finding I can now juggle university life and the charity work well,” Tabitha explains. “It is a lot of responsibility and my social life has taken a complete nose-dive but that’s the sacrifice you make when something means a lot to you.”  For further information see
www.pedroprojectbereavement.org.uk
By Kirsten Gray |
Tabitha Cameron |
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THE only way that Susann Ulrich from Edinburgh could give her dream a leg-up was by taking it over the Iron Curtain — in a dramatic escape from her native East Germany. Now Susann (34) is manager of The Kitchen Buying Group in Edinburgh — a network of small, independent retailers who combine to compete with big DIY stores and franchises. But she had to risk everything for the chance of a new life. “I was born and brought up in Zwickau near Dresden where lots of resources were dedicated to schools and sport,” she explains. “So as well as gaining excellent results from school I became an accomplished athlete. “But despite the fact that society was ordered and so much investment was channelled into young people, we weren’t free. “East Germany was devoid of the problems you see today — gangs of youths roaming the streets at night — but any future we had was limited through a rigid system of controls. “Food was controlled by the government, not by consumer demand, and although we weren’t hungry there were often shortages of certain goods. “Everyone had to face these controls, but my own disillusionment began in my teens when I realised the outside world was forbidden fruit. The Berlin Wall symbolised that it was all out of bounds. “The information age was beginning to evolve and we knew about the developments and opportunity of the western world but travel was heavily restricted. I had grandparents in West Germany I’d never met. “I had always wanted to be a doctor and I had the grades. But because my parents didn’t belong to the Communist party I had no chance of fulfilling my dream.” Susann knew escape attempts could lead to jail at best, or shooting at worst. But in July 1989, four months before the Berlin Wall was brought down, she decided it was time to go. With her childhood friend, Matthias Baumann, Susann made a plan to escape communism by travelling through Hungary and into Austria. “We’d heard rumours of people who had been killed trying to escape but I had a Hungarian friend who had done national service and he knew a point at the Hungarian-Austrian border which was relatively easy to cross. “What made the decision difficult was that there would be little contact with my parents and friends once I had left, only the occasional phone call — I certainly couldn’t return to visit. “I was an only child and my parents were vehemently opposed to me leaving but the prospect of freedom was too great to resist. We made our break under the cover of darkness. Luckily it was dry, as we had to wade through fields and climb over fences to avoid any main roads where we could be spotted. “Thankfully it went without a hitch. I suppose the scariest thing was that there was no going back. I was on my own.” Susann and Matthias spent their first two nights of freedom at a Red Cross camp in Austria. Then they made their way by train to West Germany. Once there, they went their separate ways and Susann began working as a waitress. “There is something quite liberating about starting out with nothing, and your self-confidence grows when you discover you can make it on your own. I built up enough cash to rent a small flat. With a loan I was able to buy a kitchen for the flat, but it turned out to be a good investment as I persuaded the salesman that I’d be great at his job and he arranged a meeting with his boss. “The manager agreed to give me a short probation period and I was still there four years later!” Susann completed an MA at Munich University before moving to Hamburg to take up a managerial role with a kitchen design network. Then in 2000 she met Paisley-born car salesman Stuart McCrindle at a friend’s party in Hamburg. Stuart had lived and worked in the city for 13 years but last year he became homesick and the couple moved to Scotland. Susann had no problem convincing boss Gerry Watson, who set up the Scottish Kitchen Buying Group in 2000, that she was the woman for the manager’s job. “I interact with our group, its dealers and suppliers. Not every retailer wants to be part of a franchise system and lose their own name but they need support and want to share costs and information with other retailers — that’s where we come in. “If we share costs and buy together, all our members benefit. Our members get support in business analysis, administration, marketing and staff training. We’re always looking for more independent retailers to join us.” Susann is happy with her success and feels settled in Edinburgh. So far she has no plans to stage another midnight flit. “They say you shouldn’t forget where you’ve come from and I never take my job or the ability to trade in a free market for granted. Not for a minute. Freedom is a gift and everyone should make the most of their strengths.” By Euan Duguid |
Susann Ulrich |
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Offering advice to women in business has provided Dagmar Koslowski with a one-woman enterprise of her own. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Dagmar previously designed accessories and also ran a successful clothing factory with her former husband. But when she moved to Scotland more than 10 years ago to be with friends and family, she noticed a lack of accessible information for women wanting to set up their own businesses. Now, thanks to her latest bright idea, she’s turned herself into a one-woman business online, and is making sure that Scottish women setting up on their own don’t find themselves facing the difficulties encountered by many small businesses. Dagmar, now based in Stirling, explains, “The government is always encouraging people to run their own businesses and I knew there was help out there for women wanting to start up on their own. But you really had to dig around for the relevant information. “A lot of women do want to start their own businesses and some have great ideas but many just don’t know where to go for the help they need. They keep putting it off, especially when the information isn’t right at hand. “Even women who had set up their own websites, and were paying for web space, were getting no real benefit because customers couldn’t find their sites.” Studying for a degree in IT at Glasgow Caledonian University, Dagmar looked into the matter further and realised all the information that anyone would ever need was available, if only you knew where to look. She immediately set about putting her plan into action. She says, “Scottish Enterprise and Women Into Business have lots of great information and resources available but most people don’t know it’s there. I came up with the idea of setting up a website specifically designed to help women who were just starting out in business, including links to everything from funding and grants to tax issues and promotions.” Onewomanbusiness.co.uk was born and Dagmar now offers to create websites for the businesses of budding female entrepreneurs anywhere in the UK. As part of her degree project Dagmar also researched search engines and discovered how difficult it was to achieve a top ranking on one of the major engines. After hours of toiling at her computer screen she finally cracked it — and is now storming up the search engine rankings, taking with her a whole new generation of grateful and well-informed businesswomen. Dagmar continues, “It’s been so much more difficult than I ever thought it would be but it’s really starting to take off now. We have links to all sorts of other sites that can offer help to women starting out. We’re linked to the Small Business Gateway, The Prince’s Trust and Women’s Business Network. “We also have links to less interesting and more complicated sites that a lot of people dread — such as the Inland Revenue. But these are often the most useful things to know about, and stop you getting into any trouble.” Her own site is quickly turning into a wealth of information with suggestions from new business owners flooding in thick and fast. Dagmar’s main aim is to keep things as simple as possible. “For now I don’t want to make it anything too fancy. Many people are still just getting to grips with the Internet so I’ve tried to keep it as uncomplicated as I can. “I’ve added information on workshops and courses that women can attend and also ebooks on subjects such as marketing which they can download free of charge. I also create websites for them, which I link to the directory on my own site. This gives them even more of a chance to get their businesses as well known as possible with minimum effort.” And it seems word of Dagmar’s successful one-woman plan is already making an impact across the UK. Her discussion forum, where women swap business tips, is thriving. Her site users include numerous successful businesses, from Merseyside’s only all-female legal firm to a company (called Does My Tum Look Big In This?) specialising in wedding dresses and ballgowns for pregnant women. But the downsides of being in business aren’t ignored and another popular section of the site lets members tell their own personal experiences — happy in the knowledge that Dagmar should have a plan to help iron out any problems. By Arlene Kelly Back to Features Archive |
Dagmar Koslowski
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