Work at Home Mums

Work at Home Mums is a social initiative aimed at supporting active mothers, women who are aware of their key role in the household, but who take their work at home.

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România Internațional, 03.10.2014, 13:58

Work at Home Mums is a social initiative aimed at supporting active mothers, women who are aware of their key role in the household, but who take their work at home. The idea behind this project was that mothers are resourceful beings, which is why the term ‘Work-at-Home Mums’ best describes their lively nature and the need to channel their creative energies at home, besides their husbands and children. Elena Gorun is the person who founded this community for mothers:

Elena Gorun: “Work at Home Mums is a complex project, which originally developed in Bucharest, but subsequently expanded nationwide. Recently we’ve introduced events addressing mothers in the Diaspora. We are working with mothers in Cairo, Athens or Dubai. The Association addresses women who work at home, who want to work part time, project-based, who work freelance or have started their own businesses”.

As you can imagine, it’s not easy to work at home. A lot of hard work is involved, and there are downsides to it. But where motivation is strong, the benefits are priceless – you get to spend time with your kid, watch him grow up. You can be there for him, and be a part of his life. Elena Gorun told us her own story:

Elena Gorun: “I used to work for a company that devised nutrition programmes. I spent some 5 years in the bio-food sector. After my baby boy was born 11 months ago, I tapped into a potential I was unaware of. I wanted to work at home so I started looking for a part time job. I couldn’t find much besides ballpoint pen assembling and stringing beads. The labour market was saturated, and it was depressing for me, seeing there were other mothers who wanted to work at home, irrespective of their qualifications. I could tell they wanted this very much, they were willing to make sacrifices, just to be able to spend some time at home with their children. So, little by little, I started collecting resumes and contacting various companies, asking them to refer jobseekers to us. And so we created our first module for entrepreneur moms. We were met with great reluctance, in the sense that women couldn’t really understand how it was possible for them to work at home. But gradually they came to realize that this was an actual possibility, and that they had to adapt. Some have practical jobs, for instance they make homemade soap, they engage in various tailoring activities and even involve their children and husbands. So I say in the end they will have a truly flourishing family business”.

At a certain time in her past Delia Grigoriu, spokeswoman for the Community Foundation in Bucharest, was herself a work at home mum. We asked her about that experience.

Delia Grigoriu: “It wasn’t a very pleasant experience, I even remember how tough it was to work for two years and a half with Luca at home. It was a challenge because I used to work mostly when he was asleep and when my husband came back home, I used to place Luca in his arms and said, ‘from now on I have three more hours of work to do, so you two are on your own’. I’m not quite sure if I’d do that again, but when I worked at home I achieved a certain kind of a discipline I didn’t have before. I got things done in an hour, which needed more time from me in the past.”

Our interlocutors have agreed that the biggest challenge a work-at-home mum would face is setting priorities.

Elena Gorun: ” Some of the mums in the community would like to work part-time, in order to get the best results and the domains they can cover are many, ranging from services to goods manufacturing. They can do graphics and design, text editing, interior decoration, because some of them have higher education while others don’t. As far as manufacture is concerned, some of these moms have decided to reinvent themselves. They simply jumped head-on into some activities they didn’t know very much about and became skilled in the process. We have among us toy designers, nutritionists and advisors. Some of these women would like to provide legal counseling as they are lawyers while others want to do bookkeeping or offer business coaching, teaching the other mums how to develop their own business, what taxes they have to pay etc.”