AN unsuccessful three-year job search resulted in a sparkling business idea for a woman who has refused to be held back by disability.
Karen Khan achieved a degree in communication studies and spent six years working as an internet assistant for a newspaper despite suffering from cerebral palsy. However, when she started to look for a new job, she felt potential employers were more concerned about her condition than what she could do.
Mrs Khan, from Peterlee, said: “I had absolutely no problems getting to the interview stage, but I just felt as if potential employers were seeing my disability rather than my ability.
“I think a lot of employers are worried that taking on a disabled person is too much of a risk and too much hard work, for example if they have to modify work spaces or give staff extra training.
“This isn’t necessarily them being ignorant or impatient, they just aren’t being made aware of how much support there is available for employers to be able to take on a disabled person. But after every failed interview I felt more negative.”
Frustrated by her lack of progress, Mrs Khan decided to combine her love of shopping and jewellery to launch online jewellery shop beadsandbling.co.uk.
She said: “Not being one to let my disability beat me on anything, I decided I needed to take a different approach and that self-employment was the obvious next step. I’d never been self-employed before, so it was quite a daunting prospect.” The website sells fashion and wedding jewellery, gifts and bags and has a section for local jewellery designers. Less than two months after going live, she is already keen to expand.
“The Christmas period has gone very well, considering I’m relying very much on word of mouth at the moment until my site gets listed on internet search engines,” Mrs Khan said.
“Once the business has had a few months to establish itself, I’d like to stock different types of jewellery to cater for other markets, such as gothic and ethically sourced jewellery. Also, as I build relationships with more designers, I’d like to offer customers the chance to design their own jewellery.”
Mrs Khan turned to the Pinetree Trust, which was set up to help disabled people start their own businesses, which put her in touch with local business support organisations Business Link, Be Enterprising and East Durham Business Service.
Katie Kiddle from East Durham Business Service worked with Mrs Khan to provide marketing help.
She said: “Karen developed the idea for BeadsandBling as she wanted to start a business she would be passionate about and that would allow her to vary her working hours and physical activity.”
