Wherever she goes, Isatu Peters is on the lookout for a sale.
The 22-year-old native of Sierra Leone, who works as a housekeeper at the Marriott hotel in Cambridge and braids hair at a Lynn salon, keeps Avon catalogs with her to give to people she meets. The Lynn resident also hands out catalogs to neighbors, some of whom are from her West African homeland.
"I always dreamed of having my own business when I was in my country," said Peters, whose glowing skin and bright smile make her something of a walking advertisement for the beauty products she sells. "When I see Avon, I see this is a good chance for me."
Peters came to the United States four years ago, soon after Sierra Leone's long-running civil war ended. Today, she sells hundreds of dollars worth of products every two weeks as an "Avon lady," as she is called by those who remember the door-to-door cosmetics saleswomen of a half-century ago and the company's catchy "ding-dong, Avon calling" commercials.
She landed her all-American job with the help of the International Institute of Boston, an aid agency that helps immigrants settle in the United States. About a year ago, the institute and Avon Products Inc. decided to work together to prepare refugees to be Avon sales representatives. Today, about 15 of the institute's clients - from Afghanistan, the Congo, Haiti, Uganda, and other trouble spots around the world - have their own Avon businesses.
Peters escaped the strife in Sierra Leone to neighboring Guinea, where she was granted official refugee status. The US State Department authorized her relocation to Massachusetts through the International Institute of Boston.
Immigrants often arrive with skills and business experience but don't have the resources to establish themselves in this country, said Hillary Rettig, head of the institute's entrepreneurship programs. Rettig and other institute officials believed a solution could be microfinancing or microloans - extending small amounts of credit to the smallest of small businesses - a concept most often applied in developing countries. A Bangladeshi banker and economist, Muhammad Yunis, won the Nobel Prize in economics last year for his work in the field.
As Rettig learned more about Avon, a New York-based cosmetics giant with 5 million sales representatives in more than 100 countries, she concluded the company might work well for immigrants.
Avon representatives are franchisees who buy and sell products and return a percentage of the receipts to the company, which handles marketing and inventory. What distinguishes it from other such operations is the low entry cost for the entrepreneur. The franchise fee is $10, and Avon does not require representatives to purchase products until after a sale is made.
In essence, the company extends credit to its representatives, Rettig said. "Microenterprise is very hot right now, but Avon has been doing microenterprise for 120 years," she said.
Founded in 1886 by a New York salesman, Avon is the largest direct-to-consumer seller in the world, a publicly traded company with about $9 billion in annual revenue. It sells familiar beauty products such as Skin-So-Soft and Avon Naturals, as well as jewelry and apparel.
The big corporation and the International Institute, which focuses on the needs of refugees and immigrants, found common ground.
"We just meshed together really easily," Rettig said. "We are both in the business of helping people succeed."
Avon benefits from the support the institute provides to fledgling representatives, said Liz Montecalvo, Avon's Boston-area district manager. "If there are any barriers in language, they are right there," she said.
Avon representatives submit their orders by computer, and the institute provides training. It allows clients to use its computers if they don't have one at home.
The institute, which was founded in 1924 and was heavily involved the settlement of refugees from Indochina in the 1970s, also lends credibility to the venture.
"People trust the institute," Rettig said. "There a lot of people out there who prey on immigrants."
Most Avon representatives are still "Avon ladies," but some men also sell the company's products. Avon ladies - icons of mid-20th century America - went door-to-door in search of business. Today, sales representatives do most of their selling through networking and meeting people at their workplaces or social gatherings.
There were no Avon representatives in Sierra Leone, but Peters was familiar with the company because a friend let her use Skin-So-Soft, which she had received from another friend in the United States.
But Peters' memories of Sierra Leone are clouded by trauma. Many relatives disappeared during the war, and she does not know what became of them. The decade-long conflict, which ended in 2002, was one of the most brutal in recent history. At the hands of violent factions, civilians suffered rape, murder, abduction, and mutilation. About 2 million people - one-third of the population - were displaced.
Peters said she did not know what to expect when she arrived in the United States, but is happy to be living here.
"When you are back home in my country and you think about America, you think it's heaven," she said. "It is different. It is much better. There is so much opportunity here."
Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com.
