Reducing long-term unemployment among disadvantaged women by upscaling the Rural Social Innovation (RSI) model and enriching it with a tailored gender-sensitive approach.
Context
Gender employment gaps are still a relevant issue across member states, affecting mostly women who often face barriers to equal pay and job opportunities. Among various sectors, the agri-food industry in particular is strongly affected by gender disparities and limited competitiveness for small and medium enterprises.
In this context, AWARE project aims at creating a common approach to reduce labour market barriers and enhance women’s employability in the agri-food sector, through the creation of personalised learning and employment paths, customised counselling and coaching services, and safe workplaces, based on the collaboration of a multi-stakeholder partnership including employment actors.
Objectives
- Identify long term unemployed (LTU) women’s needs, engaging local communities and improving collaboration between employment actors;
- Modernise the current training offer and existing services for employment guidance, by upscaling the RSI model through a gender- sensitive, personalised approach;
- Increase employability of LTU women within agri-food businesses while fostering community bonds between employment actors, monitored by regular coaching sessions;
- Ensure high-quality standards for effective project progress and impact achieved through a clear quality control method and analysis of lessons learned for future planning;
- Raise awareness on the need to adopt gender-sensitive measures to re-integrate LTU women into the labour market and foster exploitation of AWARE innovative approach.
Activities
- Carrying out an extensive desk and field research on women’s skills needs and main barriers in the agri-food sector, to build a long-term collaboration with local enterprises, and other employment actors.
- Developing the AWARE training course and handbook for VET professionals, supporting its educational value with the parallel development of personalised counselling paths.
- Delivering the AWARE training course to unemployed women.
- Completing 6-months long employment paths for the 80 LTU women involved in the project, supported by periodic coaching sessions.
Resources
- Research Protocol & Community Mapping Guide;
- International Report – women’s inclusion in the agri-food sector: skills’ needs, opportunities and barriers;
- AWARE Training course
- AWARE Handbook for VET professionals
Impact
- Strengthening sector-specific and soft skills, improving abilities for self-assessment, enhancing motivation and confidence to find new job opportunities for 80 LTU women, while also enhancing awareness of labour rights and available resources, increasing employment rates, improving economic stability, independence and better integration into communities and social networks, on the long term.
- Improving abilities of legal entities to encourage inclusive practices for labour market reintegration and to boost occupational skills of vulnerable citizens, increasing awareness and competencies about gender-inclusive approaches, inspiring internal policies for involved enterprises, giving a deeper understanding of local employment needs. On a similar note, enhancing capacity to develop innovative approaches for the integration of vulnerable people into the workforce, supporting better employment conditions, and fostering diversity and social inclusion.
- Generating systemic change by increasing women’s access to jobs in the agri-food sector, lowering long-term unemployment and gender disparities, fostering inclusive workplaces across the EU and reinforcing collaboration between public, private, and civil society.
Partners
- CESIE ETS (Italy, Coordinator)
- Confesercenti PA (Italy)
- FSMLR (Spain)
- FSP (Spain)
- Symplexis (Greece)
- AKMI (Greece)
- AGENSO (Greece)
- CSI (Cyprus)
- Peth (Cyprus)
- Pro Arbeit (Germany)
