Economical Empowerment of women through education

The economic situation since the crisis of 2008 has been at the roots of a huge increase in the unemployment figures across Europe. No country has been spared and we know that the longer people are unemployed, the more difficult it becomes for them to re-integrate “active life” Many grassroots “social educators” feel simply out-of-their-depth faced with the scale of the problem in their communities. Many suffer from burn-out as a result. Even those who have ideas of what could be offered have no idea what funding is available for such work or how to look for it so many ideas are not initiated – or are not sustainable for developing within a long-term perspective.This project aim was to tackle the efficiency of training and employment initiatives for unemployed women. Secondly, to explore professional training and support gaps for the facilitators and educators involved in this field of work and to develop responses at both regional and European-levels.There were 6 participating countries in the project with different backgrounds and experience of the problem. Each organization brought specific expertise that complemented each other. There was two levels of target groups. Adult Educators who we worked with directly, that attended the workshops and the method improving work. Our challenges included: •the increase in unemployment across Europe since the 2008 economic crisis •the fact that women without work are often excluded from employment and training initiatives because of their invisibility •the need for more training/non-formal education initiatives to reach women in their own communities •the lack of coordination and strategy in services due to a lack of collaboration between sectors •the lack of recognition of career paths meaning that professionals often lack tools and concepts to innovate short-term initiatives within a sustainable long-term strategic frameworkWe aimed to:oenhance the efficiency of training and employment initiatives for unemployed womenoexplore professional training and support gaps for professionals in this field and develop some responses at regional- and European-levelThe 6 partner countries were involved in the process to different degrees:•5 of them presented findings as planned after the first Mapping Year •4 of the 5 participated in the Pilot Action phase to explore and implement elements of identified good-practice involving cross-sector collaboration •the partner in France’s role – Action Research Coordination - coordinated findings and “made sense” of issues emerging •Spain – then Belgium and Italy – managed the technical side of the website and graphicsActivities included:At local level:A Mapping Exercise took place to establish the framework for Pilot ActionsRegional-level collaborative support groups were established in 4 countriesPilot Actions of different scales and duration were run in 4 countries over a period of 18 months: At European level:Two partner meetings: the Kick-Off in Sweden and the Final Meeting in FranceFour individual country visits by the Action Research Coordinator Four Learning Activities: - the first two involved 2-3 representatives of local support groups from each country: firstly to exchange on the Mapping results, the second to evaluate the first stages of the Pilot Action phase and develop the idea of a Competence Framework- the third and fourth each involved around 20 professionals working in a variety of organisations in the field of women’s unemploymentConcrete results include: The development in 4 countries of a network of professionals having participated actively in the different stages – with strategies to develop the work beyond the end of She Empowers Various tools for dissemination / transfer of the She Empowers project including:The She Empowers website, developed initially to frame the results of the Mapping, has evolved into a mini-library for the whole project includes detailed accounts of 12 Pilot Actions for potential transferA Competence Framework - in three parts - frames our conclusions about the actors, the actions and the competence requirements of the various professionals in the field A Training Manual outlining 2 model European-level Training Courses for practitioners. It includes several session templates tried and tested during these activities. Examples are added - by each of the pilot countries - of training sessions held at national levels.The Project reached 200 persons directly involved in the activities and also through internal communcation channels. For exampel City of Gothenburg made the project reachable for 50 000 employees through the intranet.