EMPOWERED New State of the Art Report
Erasmus+ European Project
Empowering Women for Better Employment: Breaking down barriers for women’s access to employment and/or ability to change career paths.
EMPOWERED | All about the project
The “EMPOWERED – Empowering Women for Better Employment” project aims to empower women through the development of a training course. With a duration of 2 years, this project aims to structure a training programme and a digital community for empowering women at a psychological dimension but also to equip them with the digital skills necessary to progress at a professional level.
EMPOWERED has a two-fold aim. On one hand it aims at empowering women at social, spiritual, mental, and psychological dimensions but also intents on the development of a training course for their digital upskilling.
Overall, EMPOWERED will help women reinforce their position in the labour market. To create a truly unique empowering environment for women, the partners will collaborate in order to develop a training programme for women, a handbook for AE trainers, providers, career counsellors and CSOs as well as a virtual community for women and project stakeholders.
Unpacking the first results of the EMPOWERED state-of-the-art-report
The first results of the EMPOWERED project highlight the tools women need, especially in the post-pandemic era, to access employment or reorientate their professional ambitions and alter their career paths.
Along with our consortium partners, Wisefour Innovation and Development Organisation Ltd examined the current situation regarding learning needs, difficulties faced by women that affect their professional life and the national constitutions and laws that aim to support job opportunities and gender balance, in order to generate an effective training programme that will empower women to realise their full potential.
Many women in Europe are facing personal circumstances that negatively impact their work prospects. These circumstances informed the various target groups with which the research was undertaken amongst consortium partners. Romania, focused their research on women in difficult socio-economic situations; Portugal, focused on migrant women; Cyprus, focused on long-term unemployed and divorced women; Greece, focused on long-term unemployed women; and Italy, focused on women living in rural areas. The fact that each partner focused on a different target group of women will help us to design training modules more appropriate, flexible, adaptable and based on real needs.
The women surveyed in the cross-national study highlighted the top difficulties they face as lack of job opportunities within their area, lack of work and personal life balance and a need for digital skills. Further to their difficulties, the women participating in the study offer recognition to the specific types of training they need to acquire in order to reach their career and personal goals.
top ten most pertinent learning priorities
The top ten most pertinent learning priorities were revealed as:
- Problem Solving,
- Self-confidence/ Personal empowerment,
- Entrepreneurship and creativity,
- Balancing professional and personal life,
- Setting and achieving goals,
- Motivation,
- Making presentations,
- Time management,
- Social media for business, and,
- CV building and job searching.
These provide valuable insights on the core needs therefore provide us with substantial help in the development of the training courses designed to empower women. To gain further perspective, focus groups undertaken in each country highlighted the point of view of stakeholders, including public and private entities operating in the field of HR, counselling, coaching, and social affairs.
The most frequent obstacles stakeholders face when working with women who try to (re-) integrate the labour market are lack of digital skills, which would increase their employability potential; lack of information in terms of available trainings/ seminars, which could enhance their skills and improve their chances of finding a job and lack of sufficient and appropriate opportunities, especially for women who live away from big cities.
A point brought up across all focus groups participants is that more should be implemented at policy level to support women who wish to actively participate the labour market and, most importantly those who wish to pursue a career fulfilling for them, in terms of their personal goals.
Empowering Women Beyond the Research Results
The first results reveal some of the barriers to women empowerment that EMPOWERED aims to solve!
Keep following the next phase of EMPOWERED as the design of the training modules for digital upskilling, as well as, psychological empowerment to reinforce women’s position in the labour market will be revealed.
Start date 01-01-2022 – End date 31-10-2023.
The project is co-funded by the European Commission, and by the Erasmus + KA2 Lifelong Learning Program.
Project Number: 2021-2-DK01-KA220-YOU-000050066
