WFWPI Webinar on Women Entrepreneurship and Diaspora
Written by: Mion Tsuchiaka
During an educational webinar hosted by Women's Federation for World Peace International, female entrepreneurs from Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Austria shared their success stories and decision-making processes that have successfully addressed significant crises in various areas of life. On December 13, one hundred people took part in the event, which was interpreted in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and French and broadcast on Zoom and YouTube platforms.
Mrs. Yumi Angolio Willett, the webinar's moderator and the National Assistant for the Global Women's Peace Network of WFWP USA, greeted the audience and stated that "self-employment has increased during the previous ten years. In this webinar, WFWP would like to unveil female business owners who have evaluated their business concepts for success”.
The opening speaker, Dr. Beatrice Bischof is a consultant, public relations, marketing specialist, and journalist. She writes a column for "The European" of the Weimer Media Group and is on the Foreign Affairs Association Management Board in Munich. The Foreign Policy Ecosystem Approach is one of her special projects (PETS). It was developed to answer pressing inquiries regarding the future of education and the workplace. According to PETS, her concept for a peace project in the Korean Peace Zone is a factory for women's entrepreneurship producing cultural goods such as ginseng.
Mrs. Beatriz Ochotorena, the second speaker, is an emergency rural attendance nurse. She is a farmer committed to living a healthy, just, and quiet life in the country. She is a supporter of morals, family, and work because she grew up in the mountains with hardworking people all around her. Since the start of her company, she has included concepts like sustainable education, the circular economy, environmental sensitivity, and animal care in her life. She and her husband established the Ultzama Foundation, which promotes sustainable tourism, shares traditional costumes, saves animals on farms, and hires individuals at risk of social exclusion, particularly women who are victims of violence and women with impairments. She has received recognition from local contests including "Challenge to the Rural Woman with Project Caracol," which strives to modernize farms in accordance with international standards for slow food.
The third speaker was Dr. Marta de Carvalho Rodrigues, a lawyer from the Wwth Office in Lisbon. She received her doctorate in law from the International University of Lisbon. She is a Portuguese immigrant from Mozambique, a founding member of Associaço a Vida Ama-me (AVA), and the mother of three children. She also supports Lily-Mor of the Blue Lily Movement. She has organized a number of high-level peace conferences, including the European Conference for the Inauguration of the Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (AIPP) and the WFWP EUME Annual European Conference, which was inaugurated in the Senate Chamber of the Parliament of the Republic of Lisbon. She spoke at a number of conferences, such as those held at the Ukrainian Parliament in Kyiv, the Angolan Conference in Camberg, Germany, and the Mozambique Embassy in collaboration with the Mozambican Women's Organization (OMM). She is also a co-organizer of the first virtual trainer course for Portuguese-speaking nations called "Teachers for Peace." She discussed her own experience of leaving Mozambique with her three children and finding success as a lawyer in Portugal despite the challenges she encountered. "Everything begins and ends with each of us, but I can guarantee you that by following the principles of the heart and properly relating to the Source of Love (God), we are capable of achieving any objective. Anything is achievable; all we need to do is become focused, choose a goal, and act”, said Mrs. Rodrigues.
The last presenter is an Australian native, Mrs. Lilly Gundacker was the first to work as a lab assistant before relocating to Europe and becoming a nurse in Switzerland. She spent two years volunteering in the United States after working on the new Parliament House design in Canberra. She and her husband currently reside in Austria where she is now raising their five children, all of whom entered the Vienna Choir. She later established her own company as a communication trainer and was instructing communication for tourism in Kitzbuehel when she received an employment offer from the United Nations. She worked as a data assistant for the Nuclear Security Department for ten years. After that, she left her position as a volunteer NGO representative and an international public servant. She is an enthusiastic mentor, trainer, and world-changer.
A Q&A session followed the webinar's conclusion. The presenters welcomed questions from the audience to understand more about their viewpoints and way of life. “Success is getting up again”, one speaker said as the webinar closed. Every attendee was inspired and empowered by each story, and they are all looking forward to the upcoming webinars on women's entrepreneurship and empowerment.
