Women Learning Together

<< Background >>During the global pandemic, we applied for this project to address the significant challenges faced by economies and individuals. The crisis accelerated the shift to online and distance learning, making the future unpredictable. To rebuild or reinvent this future, entrepreneurial skills such as innovation, agility, creativity, and collaboration were essential.Women, particularly in our target group, faced ongoing issues. Despite their potential in the labour market, many women were unemployed or left employment as they aged. The gender gap in unpaid work ranged from 6-8 hours in Nordic countries to over 15 hours in central and southern Europe. Women's inactivity was often a forced choice for low-earners who couldn't afford childcare. Employment rates for women decreased with age, part-time work was more common among women, and the gender pay gap persisted across Europe.Through the Women Learning Together project, we created sustainable and effective resources to empower women aged 35-55. The project supported the recognition of their skills, provided opportunities for mutual support, and inspired ideas for creating shared value through employment and self-employment. The womens' stories show the impact of this work.<< Objectives >>This project aimed to create sustainable, innovative, and effective resources to empower women towards economic inclusion through employment and self-employment. It encouraged women to create solutions to challenges around them and pursue entrepreneurial actions to rebuild communities. The project focused on women aged 35-55 entering the workplace with these objectives:•Providing free access to innovative upskilling pathways for low-skilled women, linked to national training pathways.•Validating existing skills and experience from life, family, work, or self-employment.•Increasing peer networks, confidence, and self-efficacy for low-skilled women.•Developing and recognizing new skills, opening new career pathways.•Raising awareness of the labor market impact of competence-based development.•Highlighting how women can develop ideas and initiate entrepreneurial actions to create social, cultural, and economic value. << Implementation >>The project activities were based around creating the following interlinked and complementary intellectual outputs and activities:•Pathway Report: Understanding the needs and potential of women aged 35-55 across Europe and developing an evidence-based methodology tailored to meet modern challenges (Project result 1).•Designing and delivering national face-to-face workshops: Recognising and validating existing skills and experience, developing new skills, and exploring career pathways into employment or self-employment (Project result 2).•Creating an online platform: Providing a learning and networking space to link conversations, opportunities, advice, and signposting to national and EU-level sources (Project result 3).•Supporting women to complete the Competence Recognition Tool: Mapping and recognising existing and newly developed skills and experience, underpinned by the EntreComp framework (Project result 4).•Designing and delivering online mini-MOOCs: Offering accessible learning opportunities to develop and recognise specific skills relevant to employment and self-employment (Project result 5).•Women's Entrepreneurial Empowerment Training: Providing a unique transnational training opportunity for women to develop their entrepreneurial ideas while working with a network of women peers and experts (Project result 6)•EU-level recognition through the Online Talent Showcase: Featuring videos and testimonies from women across Europe who participated in the programme (Project result 7).<< Results >>The concrete outcomes of this project have been:•Project result 1 – a publication of research and evidence-based methodology to address identified needs and potential of personal development for women aged 35-55•Project result 2 – A series of LearningTogether workshops, as unique, transformational, transnational training opportunities to develop women's entrepreneurial ideas, working with a network of female peers and experts •Project result 3 – an online platform space for learning and networking to link conversations, opportunities, advice and signposting to national and EU level training and information sources •Project result 4 – Supporting the recognition of competences via the WomenLearningTogether Competence Recognition Tool to map and recognise existing and newly developed skills and experience (underpinned by EntreComp and DigComp - the European key competence frameworks for entrepreneurshp and digital key competences) •Project result 5 – Transnational and blended learning through a series of national hybrid and face-to-face workshops to recognise and validate existing skills and experience, explore and develop new and careers self-employment and social enterprise •Project result 6 - 4 online mini-MOOCs [Massive Open Online Course] designed and delivered as accessible learning opportunities to recognise and improve specific skills relevant to employment and self-employment •Project result 7 – EU-level recognition through the PR7 Online Talent Showcase with videos and testimonies from women across Europe who have participated in the programme.