My name is Olga Solodushko. I am a citizen of Ukraine with permanent residency in the Czech Republic. I educate two children myself, the smallest one is only two years old so now I am on maternity leave. I worked as an operator of airfreight in a logistics company before. The specifics of my job, it is not possible to work part-time and spend at least part of the day with children, but only full-time.
So it pushed me to think about what I should do. But the answer can be easy – to start my own business. I have a Canon camera that I bought some years ago to take pictures of my son. I took some photo courses and now I am able to capture beautiful portraits. Not only am I able, but I love doing it – to think up the image of a person, choose location, find appropriate attributes for good composition and to get amazing pictures, to get positive emotions and feedback from clients.
At the beginning of this year I decided to look for information on how to start my own business the right way in CR and found the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs. It was going to start in a month. I sent the application and in a short time was happy to get mail with an invitation to take part in the project. It was a wonderful chance for me not only to get the basic knowledge of entrepreneurship, but to communicate with other women who are going to start business or who have already started and were open to share their experience.
During the course we studied and discussed the topics from the program DreamBuilder from Thunderbird School of Global Management, trained to tell interesting story about our business to attract clients and investors, met with famous business women, got many recommendations and tips about Czech tax system, time management and motivation tips from our mentors and the experienced participants that I indefinitely will use in my business as a portrait photographer.
I am grateful to the Academy for interesting and useful information about entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic and just for the possibility of joining a community of inspiring business women.
The program is designed (prepared) for Czech speaking women, so almost all participants were Czechs.
But from the beginning of the Russian invasion to Ukraine, many Ukrainian women came to the Czech Republic and as it was for me it would be useful and helpful to work out a similar course for Ukrainian women. Many of them don’t speak Czech very well and can’t get qualified jobs as they had in Ukraine before the war. Their own business would solve the problem. But to start a new business in a new country is not very easy. I am sure they would need knowledge of “how to start a business in the Czech republic”.
So I would like to appeal to you to expand the project for more women from Ukraine.
Olga Solodushko
The participant of Third year course
Academy for Women Entrepreneurs
