Paula Greenfield Washingtonⁱ, Ph.D

"For too long, business ownership has been overlooked as viable option for individuals with disabilities. It was assumed that the term 'entrepreneurship with disabilities' was an oxymoron...today thousands of people with disabilities are dispelling these myths by starting wildly successful businesses of all kinds."
Disability & Entrepreneurship: A Formula for Success
The Abilities Fund, Inc. 2002

The Department of Labor Women's Bureau (WB) launched the Women with Disabilities Entrepreneurship Project in August 2002. The purpose of the project is to promote entrepreneurship among women with disabilities through access to information and training programs. From the outset, the project has been very successful in its goal of helping women with disabilities overcome the barriers to become business owners. Over forty women have started businesses in the first two years of the program.

Women with disabilities experience economic hardship out of proportion to their representation in the population. Their unemployment rate:

• exceeds that of men with work disabilities

• exceeds that of non-disabled women

Living In-Between Two Worlds

According to the Department of Commerce, people with disabilities are almost twice as likely to start a business as non-disabled individuals. Fourteen percent of people with disabilities are self-employed, compared to 8% of non-disabled persons.

The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) has now partnered with the WB to support and expand the purpose and goals of the project through 2005. Specifically, the WB in collaboration with ODEP will provide an entrepreneurial training program targeting women with disabilities from culturally diverse backgrounds with special outreach to women with severe disabilities. This partnership plans to provide assistance to 70 additional women in four different regions: Region IV with the project located in Kennesaw, GA; Region VII with the project located in Kansas City, MO; Region VIII with the project located in Denver, CO; and, Region IX with the project located in Oakland, CA.

Specific outcomes expected from the project include:

• Multi-week microenterprise business development training

• Technical assistance for business mentoring

• Technical assistance for business marketing such as web site design

• Technical assistance to pursue business capital

• Promotional literature

• Consolidated participant feedback

• Success stories

Success stories from the first two years include a legally blind client working with real estate owners who order floral arrangements for new homeowners. She also has her arrangements on display at several business locations. Another client has a full-service travel agency. Since graduating from the training program, she has seen her sales increase from 15% to 50% and continuing to grow. Another client has opened a home-based child care business and another with a bipolar disorder has become a public speaker about her own disability and has written a book to help others cope with real solutions and strategies. Other businesses begun by clients in the first two years are: a specialty clothing and shoe store for people with disabilities, a nurse consulting business, hairdresser, event planner, resume consultant, retail aquarium business, design of custom products for the disabled communities, and an alternative legal network service to provide mediation and arbitration for the disability community.

The Project was awarded the prestigious 2003-2004 Secretary of Labor's Exceptional Achievement Award. Our graduates are truly "ABLE OWNERS", no longer defined by their disabilities but respected and sought after as business owners for their abilities.

i Dr. Paula Greenfield Washington is Co-Owner, President and Managing Partner of The WOMENTOR Group, LLC an Atlanta based-woman owned firm specializing in educational consulting and training. Our main focus is on developing leadership and mentoring programs specifically targeted at women clients. Dr. Washington is the overall Project Coordinator for the Women with Disabilities Entrepreneurship Project (WDEP), both Phases I and II) and will be writing "How To" Manuals documenting the various models that emerge in each of the four regions.