Digital EmpowHer is…
A guidance approach to encourage adult women’s lifelong learning, skills development and resilience to access opportunities and succeed in the labour market.
From 23 to 24 January 2023, the Digital EmpowHer project partners met in Dublin, Ireland, to hold the
project’s kick-off meeting to discuss in detail the upcoming planned activities and tools that will be
soon available for career guidance practitioners, women from disadvantaged backgrounds,
stakeholders, policymakers, and the public in general.
The partnership is made up of six organisations from five countries; Ballymun Job Centre (Ireland) Associazione Piano C (Italy) MetropolisNet (Germany) Ayuntamiento de Alzira (Spain) Folkuniversitetet (Sweden) and Rinova Málaga (Spain).
This project presents a new, transnational contribution to the debate on the structural challenges that women undergo within the labour market – access to employment, gender gap in the career processes, influence of social and family factors within their inclusion and paths across work, family, and personal lives, etc. At the same time, labour market dynamics linked to remote working and digital competence requirements are particularly challenging for people from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-skilled job seekers. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this situation, making it therefore extremely urgent to improve guidance services to empower women to reach their full potential, participate in the labour market and gain access to more career opportunities.
The project objectives emphasise career guidance as a core part of the support service, providing
users with the opportunity to identify their own innate abilities. The goal of individual career guidance is to discover and develop educational, vocational, and employment potential, to equip individuals to have a clearer understanding of themselves and potential for future career development, and to direct individuals towards training and employment opportunities in the environment that best fulfil their needs and aspirations. With that in mind, this project seeks to improve the quality and relevance of the guidance sector and directly address the needs of guidance practitioners 1) enhancing the capability to empower women to develop confidence in their self-perceived competences, to embrace learning opportunities and help them reach their full potential within the labour market, especially in the new normal current circumstances, a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2) encouraging digital upskilling training to enhance access to and full use of the digital resources, offered within an evolving society and modern labour market.
To sum up…
Digital EmpowHer connects the issues concerning the structural weaker position of women within the labour market such as insufficient mobility, lower salaries, and care duties rights with the increasing digital upskilling requirement to access opportunities. Digital EmpowHer equips adult women, guidance practitioners, and their organisations with the necessary tools and competences to develop creative and innovative solutions to face the challenges that the 21st century poses.
Check out our website to stay tuned!
The DigitalEmpowerHer project has been co-financed with the support of the ERASMUS+ program of the European Union. Its contents and materials are the sole responsibility of their authors. The Commission is not responsible for the use that may be made of the information contained therein. It will run from December 2022 to December 2024. (Financing reference KA220-ADU-BDA9D5E9).