Empowering women for better employment

For different reasons all the partners are living in a context in which women are still disadvantaged when we talk about access to job and employability. The EMPOWERED project created a training p...

The objective of the project is the empowerment of women through the development of a training course for their digital upskilling, as well as their psychological empowerment to reinforce their position in the labour market. The courses, based on the Found.ation Business Academy (FBA) a tailored professional skills platform developed by the Found.ation, offer structured and dynamic content on emerging technologies, innovation & digital transformation, which can be delivered with great flexibility. The content of the FBA have been adapted to the needs of unemployed women, as well as women who wish to pursue a career change but are reluctant. In addition to the digital skills that will be enhanced, the partners also developped a horizontal set of modules, aiming at helping women address the psychological factors that demoralise women for claiming a better employment or having access to job carreer. The implementation of the project activities lead the women to have a better position in the labor market, be ready to have a job interview and be able to present themselves in a propper way in base of the different contexts. We achieved our objective training more than 150 women who expressed their satisfaction for this opportunity.

The project started with a survey-research R1 conducted on women (in base of the a target group of each partner) and on the stakeholders at regional level. We collected data on the challenges that women need to face when trying to achieve employment or change/start their career, this work lead us to identify the main problems, needs and obstacle. The R1 lead us to the identification of the training topics, the creation of training templates and the design of training programs (R2). Aftert we tested among ourselves the R2 we started to pilot it with the women in each partner country. While running the trainings we were working on the creation of an handbook (R3) to facilitate the delivery of the Empowered course by AE teachers and trainers, career counsellors and CSO representatives aimed at providing the theoretical background, the tools and methodologies of the EMPOWERED training course to facilitate its implementation after the end of the project. The handbook is expected to bring important added value to the sustainability of the results developed. Finally we realized hte training platform where everyone for free can have access to the training programs. The partnership realized 4 TPMs, 2 LTAs and 10 Multiplier events (online and face-to-face), 2 newsletter and we created a website that collect all the project info, results and activities. Partners ran also informal meeting with stakeholders and learners, to create a better training environment and to exchange good practices in order to optimize the training offer.

The project got 4 different results: - R1 state-of-the-art research to document the challenges that women need to face when trying to achieve employment or change their career, especially following the changes brought about from the pandemic and in the era of digital transformation. - R2 training modules divided in 2 categories, digital mindshift and soft skills. 13 training programs developed, 39 training units piloted. - R3 handbook to facilitate the delivery of the Empowered course by AE teachers and trainers, career counsellors and CSO representatives aimed at providing the theoretical background, tools and methodology approaches. - R4 https://platformempowered.org the EMPOWERED community-training platform. A virtual space in which anyone can attend the training courses, get its own certificate of attendance and also interact with learners and stakeholders. Useful platform for both learners (to attend trainings) and trainers (to get inspired and have the opportunity to be in touch in a friendly virtual environment with colleagues all over Europe.