Rural Women’s Empowerment through GREen Social ENtrepreneurship

The European Green Deal sets Europe on the pathway to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, while the EU’s first-ever Gender Equality Strategy is designed to make gender equality in ...

The project focused on the adult education stream by aiming to foster social green entrepreneurship among women in rural communities through education in the form of practical local programs, which was the main objective of the project. The project aims at bridging the “gap” in the educational system between the need for new green skills and entrepreneurial skills and the lack of adequate educational content for the development of such skills, through an innovative training course for teachers in delivering green social entrepreneurship education, utilizing blended learning methodology. The specific objectives of the project were: a) Building awareness in rural areas about women and green entrepreneurship as vehicles of the empowerment of local communities b) Building the capacities of formal & non-formal educators in a rural area on green social entrepreneurship for women; c) Design & implementation of local programmes aiming at empowering women in rural area through green social entrepreneurship. d) Develop guidelines for stakeholders at local, national and European level about needed measures for building an enabling environment for women’s entrepreneurship in the rural area

The project aimed to address the need for transformation of the EU economy into a green one and the development of new skills required for both green jobs and entrepreneurship in the rural area, using digitalisation and social economy models. The following activities were implemented: Management activities: to ensure partner are following guidelines and rules regarding communication, project meetings, administration and financial arrangements. Dissemination and Communication activities: To ensure the promotion of the project and the involvement of the stakeholders. Quality and Impact Evaluation activities: to measure and manage the quality of our work. Partners meetings: To help the partnership focus on how to organize the work to be done and how to complete the work done on specific results or activities that the project foresees during its completion. Research, collecting of good practices, Learning, Teaching, Training, capacity building activities and networking. Through the collection of existing tools and experiences (PR1) gave the opportunity to better understand the European trends and to analyse the main gaps in supporting green social enterprises creation among women. The definition of a common online capacity building programme (PR2) tested with the direct involvement of adult educators at the local level (Pr3) facilitate intermediary organizations in supporting the creation of sustainability-driven activities. The Guide for stakeholders(PR4) was developed for building an enabling environment for women’s entrepreneurship in the rural area.

The development of a and updated knowledge base repository on rural women’s green social entrepreneurship, necessary for the preparation of the upcoming activities. This repository included reports at the national and EU level on specific needs of rural women and the exact problems they face, preventing their integration in the labour market and fostering green social entrepreneurship and a collection of best practices related to green social entrepreneurship for women in rural areas. (PR1) The development of the capacity building programme for formal and non-formal educators working with women in a rural area: a training programme for formal and non-formal educators working with women in a rural area. An online learning platform has been developed for this activity. (PR2) The implementation of the Capacity building programme at the transnational and local level. The activity implied the training of trainers that will deliver this training. The capacities of 40 formal & non-formal educators of rural women/social entrepreneurship/green skills in the 4 implementing countries (Romania, Cyprus, Slovenia and Serbia) was developed in terms of implementing the developed capacity building programme .(PR3) The elaboration of a guide for stakeholders at local, national and European level with recommendations about building an enabling environment for women’s green social entrepreneurship in the rural area. (PR4) 5 dissemination events (4 at the national level and 1 at EU level);