About Rose Handy -- Building a Successful Company from Scratch--from a Shelter:

Rose Handy thought she was living a great life. She was a successful sales executive in one of North America's largest financial institutions, she was financially secure, had a loving and equally successful boyfriend, and - at nine months pregnant - she was ready to give birth to their first child.

When she came home from the office one day, she was certain that her landlord had made a huge mistake: He had left a notice of eviction, claming non-payment of rent. "I had been giving my boyfriend the rent money to pay the landlord, but the rent was never paid." Rose explained. When she investigated further, she discovered that her boyfriend had stolen the rent money. What's worse, while he left for work every morning, he hadn't had a job in six months. He also emptied her bank account. The life that Rose knew unravelled in a matter of minutes. Rose had to face having her baby without a home and with no money.

She gave birth to her child and then she and her baby were placed in a Women's Shelter. "For four months I sat there and just shook my head. I was angry at myself. I thought 'how could I have let this happen?' ". The shelter provided Rose with a good environment in which she could take care of her newborn while also dealing with the trauma of what had happened to her. "Before the healing," she said "there is a pre-healing period. A time when you just need to deal with what happened to you; to be angry, to cry, to just sit with it and understand it.". Rose was able to take advantage of the services that were made available to her in the shelter: counselling, education, and resources, while having a bed to sleep in and food to eat. "The shelter helped me to be the best mother I could be for my child, while I was dealing with my circumstance and getting back up on my feet".

There was also another benefit that she found: "In my shelter, there was a library. There were a variety of books that I could read, and some of them had to do with starting your own business. I had always wanted to start my own company, but, like most people, I wanted to do it wisely: work at a job, save some money, start the business part-time, and then launch into it full-time. Now I had no money, no home, and I thought 'well, I have nothing to lose, so why not?' ". A native of Cameroon Africa, Rose is fluent in French and English. In Canada, she saw significant opportunity for a business that centered around the need for bilingual resources. Rose started her bilingual consultancy that day in the shelter.

"I did one engagement while living in the shelter: I had an opportunity to act as a community consultant for a women's conference." Rose reminisces. "I got dressed up, I conducted the engagement as a professional, and then I came back home to the shelter."

Today Rose's business has grown and prospered. She has run countless bilingual job fairs, helping to connect hundreds of candidates to employers. Her company has created the only bilingual employment paper available in Toronto, and she has expanded her reach by creating a service online which provides information and insight on bilingual employer profiles, a list of potential employers, a calendar of future job fair events and the system for recruiters and candidates to find each other.

Rose is also now the proud mother of two beautiful healthy girls.

Rose's company can be found here:

Bilingual Link

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