Project Description
TCN women, which are representing the 45% of refugees in EU, have lower activity and employment rates, a higher risk of poverty and are more likely to be in lower skilled occupations. Most of them face particular integration challenges associated with lower education and labour market outcomes compared to refugee men. While many arrive from countries with high gender inequality and low employment rates for women, they also face various challenges in the arrival countries, where labour market access is not always about skills, degrees or work experience.
Data shows that Muslim women face discrimination at various stages in the process of seeking employment, from access to VET and internship opportunities to recruitment. There is also a lack of policy focus on effective integration processes of TCN women in the new social environment.
Given these circumstances, ENGAGE’s overall objective is to create social, cultural and employment pathways for the integration of TCN women in the host communities, via the organization of:
- Up-Skilling workshops for TCN women and validation of acquired competences based on Open Badges methodology
- Capacity building for LMS
- Job shadowing schemes
- Women’s circles involved local and TCN women
- Awareness-raising activities
These activities will be carried out in a 24-month project and in a European partnership of 11 partners across 8 countries, co-funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) of the European Commission.
The work of ENGAGE with the target groups starts off with Work package 2: Up-Skilling Workshops for TCN Women and Labour Market Stakeholders (LMS). The first step consists of a qualitative research and national/comparative report which will inform the development of ‘Capacity Building Materials’ for labour market stakeholders and in the following a ‘WELCOME Educational Pack’ for TCN women as a preparation for the job shadowing which will follow. The training materials will be translated and adapted to an e-learning format. Besides the e-learning format, workshop sessions will be implemented with 15 selected TCN women per country and labour market stakeholders.
In the following Work package 3: Job Shadowing Schemes (JS) Development forms the core of the project. In each country 8 companies will be selected to offer a 2-month job shadowing schemes to TCN women accompanied by a peer-to-peer mentoring for the TCN women by another women with migration experience who is already settled and professionally active in the arrival country. All three actors will be provided with a JS toolkit developed by the ENGAGE partnership with useful material, assessment and monitoring templates. In month 17 and 18 of the project the national job shadowing scheme implementation takes place, accompanied by a qualitative and quantitative evaluation synthesized in a comprehensive report. The whole job shadowing process is accompanied by the development and use of the ENGAGE online assessment tool and portal, and an eco-system of Open Badges to assess and validate competences of the participating women.
Work Package 4: Women’s Circles Development, which runs from M2-M24, offers a set of additional activities to TCN women and aims to break down barriers, stereotypes and increase social interaction and community building by developing a sense of communal identity. This is carried out by organizing arts-based activities, structured dialogue formats and volunteering activities within the women’s circles. Additionally, an intercultural event on International Migrants Day in December 2022 will be organized. In each country, a short documentary will be produced in which migrant women will share their life stories and migration experiences. Local participants who were part of the project activities will also share their experience in the project.
For more information, check out the project’s website https://academy.amif-engage.eu/
