Sustainability skills entrepreneurial mind set to foster migrant women employability and upskilling possibilities

In today's world, where migration and immigration are more widespread and possible than ever before, the main challenge that comes with this concept is the lack of employment opportunities for the...

STEP UP project aimed for the following objectives; -To provide a wide range of skills (employability skills, transversal competencies, communication skills, teamwork, confidence, ability for innovation, sustainable thinking) to migrant women while raising their awareness of the importance of lifelong learning possibilities, -To provide tailored support based on their specific needs, ensuring continued support by the trained staff with the correct set of competencies, -To offer a new way to build up migrant women’s motivation for participating in upskilling possibilities, using entrepreneurial mindset and sustainability skills as an innovative way for skills identification and screening, -To develop and test an all-in-one learning program to help migrant women strengthen their employability skills, fostering their awareness of the importance of upskilling possibilities while getting a step further toward skills and the qualification’s recognition, -To increase adult educators’ readiness to work with migrant women and to understand their barriers and specific needs, -To define new ways to support migrant women in showcasing their skills and propose better qualifications or job positions.

During the implementation process of our STEP UP project, we had the chance to implement a wide range of activities. A.1) Project Management: It was carried out as an ongoing process embracing all the stages and combining them in an organic process resulting in the achievement of expected results. Under IFALL coordination, the partners started to work together since the very notification of the project’s approval. The project kick-off meeting led to the finalization of key internal resources and the establishment of the governing bodies in charge of its delivery, as previously explained. A.2) Transnational Partner Meetings: We had 3 TPMs in partner countries (Sweden, Italy and Turkiye). These meetings were held in crucial time nodes of project implementation to ensure partners’ understanding and collaborative work on the project results. A.3) Dissemination: It was carried out as an ongoing task for the whole project life, under the leadership of MVI and the cooperation of all partners. Among the regular activities performed, there was the online diffusion of information (Social Media, Website, Newsletter), production of visual identity for the STEP UP project, production of dissemination materials and multiplier activities (meetings with stakeholders, circulation of physical dissemination materials). A.4) Quality Control: Quality control of the STEP UP project was the responsibility of Framework. The process involved actively all partners and project committees, participants, stakeholders and external experts to provide deep analysis and feedback on the prototypes and results before wider dissemination. A.5) Production of the project’s result: The defined project results of this project were; PR1 - Manual for Educators and Facilitators PR2 - STEP UP Program and Tools Guidebook To produce these results at a high-quality level, partners collected best practices in this field and other local stakeholders contributed to the structure of the entrepreneurial mindset, and employability skills and motivated migrant women to pursue upskilling programs. The partners investigated how assessed skills can be described to benefit migrant women. Therefore, the manual was developed for adult educators and trainers working with migrant women, who are willing to gain new perspectives on the barriers they face when searching for support and upskilling possibilities. The All-in-one learning program was developed to foster a wide range of skills needed by the labour market, along with new tools to assess and certify these skills. All results are available in six languages. A.6) Pilotings: The Educators manual was tested by the partners’ educators and by six external experts with different backgrounds, while R2 the program was tested with a group of selected migrant women who did not receive upskilling possibilities before, so they truly say if the proposed method is working or not. The local phase of piloting took transferability and exploitation after the project ended. A.7) Multiplier Events: These events are organized in each partner country with the involvement of participants and stakeholders to compound the dissemination of outputs, and build partnerships and networks between participants and stakeholders. The project’s formal closure is needed to ensure the project meets its objectives, impact and benefits, and ensure all results are completed and stakeholders are informed.

In the STEP UP project, the following concrete results were produced by the project consortium; 1)Analysis Report of PR1 2) R1: STEP UP Manual for educators 3) R2: STEP UP Program and Tools 4) STEP UP Promo materials (Leaflet, Brochure and Poster: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T0chlyv_LCZ_zFZd280Gjz6RxOjqZFUt) 5) 8 Newsletters to inform the target groups about the project's steps, available in six languages (https://step-up.myerasmus.net/events-news/) 6) 2 Assessment reports for the first and second year of the project, 7) A detailed dissemination report of the STEP UP project. All of the above-mentioned concrete results can also be found here; https://step-up.myerasmus.net/