Work Permit for Asylum Seekers: Alternatives

What is e-commerce?

2008-08-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

Imagine the following case: A person from one country (in Africa, Asia ...) comes to another country (North America, Europe) seeking asylum. He or she applies for becoming an accepted refugee but is informed that the legal procedure might take some time (in some countries: some years).

During this period of time this person mostly is NOT allowed to take up work.

E-COMMERCE is a term that describes ways of earning money over the internet: By selling something over the internet - in some cases simply selling information (e.g. an Ebook as a PDF document).

On this website some services are described that offer you to start your e-Business. It might be the case that you can register your own small business over the internet with an address in your home country legally (please ask the autorities in the country you stay in right now, if these thoughts are applicable in this country):

In this case theoretically you do not "work" regularly in the country you live in right now as an asylum seeker, but continue (or start) an e-business that is based in your home country (in Africa, Asia ...) - in many cases as an artists (by writing a book, making handmade art, paintings, producing music), but also as an import/export trader (e.g. on EBAY):

In most countries it should not forbidden that an asylum seeker is creative during the time his application as a refugee is still in process - but please check.

Bank Account

2008-08-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

The most important thing before starting an e-business (E-Commerce) is having a bank account.

There are alternatives to a "normal" bank account but - as far as we know right now - these internet-based services will ask for your bank account - or credit card - sooner or later to verify the owner - and your account can be deleted or locked if you do not verify (in the worst case: the amount of money on it are lost for you if you don´t).

Right now we have experience with

PAYPAL - www.paypal.com

and

MONEYBOOKERS - www.moneybookers.com .

Both services use your email address as your account nr. - that means, anyone else who has a Paypal account / moneybooker account can send you money very simple - but: to really hold this money in your hand you must transfer it to a "real" bank account (can be a bank account in Africa or Asia registered on your name). Otherwise you can buy products online where Paypal or Moneybookers is accepted as a method of payment and, once again: you will be asked for a real bank account for verification sooner or later - otherwise your account is deleted or locked.

Please read the details on the two given websites.

Get paid for blogging

2008-08-16T04:57:00.000-07:00

The most simple way to earn (at first: very little!) money is to write a blog (a weblog - an internet-diary) .

By putting commercial ads / banners between the articles you write you will earn a small amount of money everytime someone clicks on these banners.

An ideal way to start your own blog is to use www.blogger.com - because it is owned by Google and can easily be upgraded with the Google Adsense banners. The blog you read here right now is hosted by www.blogger.com ( all blogs ending with ... blogspot.com are hosted by blogger.com = Google) - so you see an example right now.

But there are other free blog-hosters (blog-providers) - simply search for "free blog" - but many of them do NOT allow you to place commercial banners on them (because these providers make their own money by placing only their own banners on your blog).

Of course this model of earning money will only work if have something interesting to tell! If you start a "michael jackson fan-blog" - you might not be the first who had this idea - and maybe noone will find your blog (because many many website about M. Jackson exist already).

But if you are a specialist in some area - or you are a very talented writer - you might have a very "famous" blog one day that is visited by thousands of readers (among which hopefully many click on your commercial banners).

Sell your own books with LULU.com

2008-08-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

If you are an author - or you simply like to write, you can publish your book over www.lulu.com , a self publishing platform:

Lulu.com will not ask you questions about the quality of your book or will not read it to give you feedback on the content - they publish every document you send them (as a word or rtf file) over the Internet (with some rules regarding offending, ... content).

Right now there are two ways of selling your documents:

* without an ISBN Nr. - this can be any document starting from some pages - but your book will only be available for buyers at www.lulu.com , (for this version you do not have to pay anything - you will earn when the first copies are sold).

* with an ISBN Nr.: you will have to pay for this "global distribution package" - but in return your book will be available in every bookstore all around the world.

How much can you earn: Lulu has an online calculator that shows you how much the printing of the book costs for Lulu (dependin on the nr. of pages, the binding ...) - it is up to you to set the price higher and to choose, which revenue you will earn.

Theoretically: If you consider the content of your book to be very very valuable, you could set the price of your book to 100 Dollars and will earn about 95 Dollars for every sold copy (but: do you really have something THAT amazing to tell ...?).

Become an AMAZON partner

2008-08-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

A good way to make your book well known is to combine it with a blog, and you can earn some additional money. Here´s how it works:

Your blog will be found on the internet for persons searching for certain keywords.

and you can give your readers the opportunities to give you feedback by posting a comment.

AND:

You can make some additional money by becoming an AMAZON partner:

AMAZON partners earn money if someone buys a product on amazon.com that you have recommended on your blog or website.

If you have an author´s blog where you list your own book (must have an ISBN Nr.) as an AMAZON partner you will earn a small amount of additional money every time someone buys it after clicking on your AMAZON recommendation.

Later on you might add other (more expensive) products available on AMAZON - like computers, technical gadgets .... because if someone buys an expensive product by clicking on your AMAZON recommendation - your revenues will be higher too (the percentage you get from AMAZON).

Please read the details on the AMAZON website.

Sell your handmade products on ETSY

2008-08-12T06:18:00.000-07:00

Some asylum seekers have good skills in making handmade products - sometimes handmade art - like paintings, sculptures, ...

You can start to sell your handmade products on www.etsy.com - if you have some money to pay the fee for having your products registered there - please read the details on this website.

Once again: It might not be legal to sell these products in the country you live in, because you apply for asylum there, but you can register yourself on www.etsy.com with an address in your home country (in Africa, Asia) - and theoretically it should be okay to make creative work in the country you live in right now - and sell it from a business based in your home country.

The biggest platform for selling your own stuff is, of course EBAY.com - but as far as we know, there you have only two possibilities:

* place your product there as an auction: your product will only be online for 5-10 days (as long as the auction runs - you can choose)

* open an EBAY SHOP - where you can keep your products online for an unlimited period of time - but then the fees will be a lot higher than on ETSY.com (as far as we know - but please check these two websites to make an up-do-date comparison).

Sell your music online

2008-08-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

If you have read the articles on self publishing with LULU.com above, you will have an idea already on what selling creative work on the internet works:

If you are a musician / singer - and you are able to record your music onto a PC (is isnt´t hard to do - you can use the freeware AUDACITY as a recording software, but you might need a mixer to plug in two microphones (and use the "line in" port of your PC instead of the "mic in" port) - because recordings with "pc-microphones" normally are in MONO and do not have a very good quality), you can start to sell your music:

* on CDs: there are "CD on demand" services that will produce your CD one by one only if it is ordered: LULU.com will do that for you as well, but we are not sure if they offer you also a EAN Nr., so that your CD is also available on AMAZON . A better platform for that obviously is www.createspace.com right now.

* sell downloadable music: We are not "into this topic" so far, but there are several platforms where you first upload your music (e.g. an mp3 file, a .wav file) and people can download it for a certain price - you will get a revenue for every download. Please make your own research with "sell your own music online" or similar keywords ...

Sell products from your home country

2008-08-10T06:38:00.000-07:00

Imagine the following e-commerce idea:

If you know, let´s say a good carpenter in your home country (in Africa, Asia ...), who makes wonderful chairs, chairs which are not available in the country you live in right now - and you know someone who can bring such a chair to the country where you live right now, you might do the following:

You register on EBAY.com - with your address in your home country: that means you are an ebay user in Africa, Asia ...

You put this chair on EBAY, describing the "location of the product" in the country where you live:

That means Ebay buyers (in North America, Europa) will find it, even though you sell it as an Africa-based / Asia-based seller. Theoretically you still work in your home country as a seller, only one chair you sell is located in the country you live in right now.

If this works with one product - think about selling other products from your home country - or putting up an Ebay shop to sell larger numbers of these products (or use ETSY.com if these are handmade products).

Sell your paintings, drawings, photos

2008-08-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

To round things up:

If you are a painter, we mentioned alredy platforms to sell your stuff:

ETSY.com and of course ebay.com , and lulu.com (if it is digital art).

If you are a photographer, and you have some very good shots you can imagine that people would like to buy as a poster, there are some services cooperating with the biggest Photo Community FLICKR.com .

As far as we know, right now this is possible at Imagekind.com - to print and sell these high quality and large format prints.

Sell T-Shirts, Mugs, Caps, ...

2008-08-07T06:56:00.000-07:00

If you find you aren´t such a gifted artist as persons we were talking about in the articles above, there are even more simple ways to create something:

On www.cafepress.com it takes only a simple slogan or logo to put it on different kinds of gifts: Mugs, caps, t-shirts.

And if you aren´t into graphic works either and just have a slogan in mind you can use t-shirt selling websites like spreadshirt.net to put up your own webshop with products showing the individual text slogan you have created (mostly you could also let them print a photo you have made).

Each of this websites offers you to create your own webshop - and once again: you will earn revenues for every product someone buys online.

Ther are many more web-site offering these services - just make your own research with keywords like "sell your own t-shirts" ...