Inbound migration and refugee flows have changed the face of our societies: Sweden currently has the highest proportion of refugees per capita (1); the Syrian crisis has forced ca 2.7 million new refugees into Turkey alone (2) and while the UK and Italy have a history of immigrant integration, social tension between locals and foreigners is at a historic high. “Through Enterprise” (TRUE) is based on the premise that we must do more to enable the social and economic integration of newcomers to our societies. Typically, migration is led by men seeking employment, but they are often accompanied by wives and young/adult children. While integration is difficult for all, women are most at risk facing multiple levels of marginalization relating to gender, family, cultural, linguistic and social barriers. In other words, migrant women are placed at the intersection of two processes, gender and racial subordination. Entrepreneurship training has increasingly shown to be a useful mean of combining skills training with integration: when taught as a transversal skill, it can be a path to business creation, employment, involvement in community initiatives or simply problem solving and self-esteem. Often the fact of participating in a training course among locals has positive impacts on inclusion. In reality, though, enterprise training providers are not well equipped to train females from different cultural backgrounds; recruitment is limited to people “in the mainstream” and the content and delivery can be so far from their experience that the courses are ineffective in leading to the expected outcomes. TRUE partners see this in our daily work and it causes us concern: - low rates of participation from foreign born females in enterprise training - low number of courses on enterprise in community organizations For these reasons, the objective of TRUE is to significantly improve the access to, and quality of entrepreneurship education within the context of inclusion and diversity, to unlock the potential of migrant and refugee women. Working with VET partners from both community groups and entrepreneurship training providers our specific objectives are to: i) Guide VET providers/stakeholders to improve engagement using a carefully researched Reach and Teach Catalogue (IO1) ii) Equip VET organizations to integrate new approaches for effective, intercultural entrepreneurship education for women via the Learning Framework & OERs (IO2) iii) Maximise access to intercultural entrepreneurship training through a multilingual online course (IO3) iv) Train the first generation of TRUE trainers v) Disseminate widely to maximise use and impact of the project’s outputs across Europe TRUE will benefit and yield tangible results for our target groups: - MIGRANT WOMEN who were previously excluded or marginalized in the labour market, will be empowered to unlock their professional and personal capabilities. Some will go on to create businesses, many will use their entrepreneurial skillset for other employment, social or community benefits. - VET COLLEGES, ENTERPRISE CENTRES and other education providers will gain greater awareness regarding the importance of inclusive entrepreneurship education and new and improved resources to cater to the needs of migrant women through the lens of inclusion, diversity and intercultural integration. - COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS (WOMEN FOCUSED, MIGRANT SERVICES etc) will understand the value of entrepreneurship skills thanks to new relationships with VET organizations and will be able to refer beneficiaries to the open, online course as an immediate path for training and career development. - PROJECT PARTNERS will be the first to benefit from the ability to integrate new approaches to inclusive education and their work in synergy with organisations from other sectors. Staff will appreciate the more modern, professional environment and be more capable of work on high scale international collaborative projects. - WIDER STAKEHOLDERS from across the VET, community and migrant services sectors will be exposed to new forms of inclusive entrepreneurship education and be more likely to commit to more practical strategies for improving inclusion and diversity on a wider level. - COMMUNITIES will see a rise in entrepreneurship and innovation among migrant women and benefit from the increased social integration and cohesion that comes from enabling migrants to play a productive role in the economy and society. On completion, TRUE will have produced the linkages, the knowledge and resources to enable VET bodies, enterprise centres, and migrant service organisations to drastically improve access to, and quality of entrepreneurship education for women from ethnic and minority backgrounds. Doing so will facilitate the empowerment of thousands of women and their increased integration into our society and economy. It will also contribute to building the capacity of VET and enterprise support organisations.
“Through Enterprise” (TRUE) was based on the premise that we must do more to enable the social and economic integration of newcomers to our societies. TRUE partners see this in our daily work and it causes us concern: ow number of courses on enterprise in community organizations and specifically low rates of participation from foreign born females in enterprise training. Entrepreneurship training has increasingly shown to be a useful mean of combining skills training with integration: when taught as a transversal skill, it can be a path to business creation, employment, involvement in community initiatives or simply problem solving and self-esteem. Working with VET partners from both community groups and entrepreneurship training providers our specific objectives are to create: IO1 A “Reach and Teach” catalogue, a guide for VET providers to improve engagement and understanding - achieved a total of 624 downloads and direct distribution across all languages. This surpassed our target of 550 downloads and direct distribution IO2 A set of Open Educational Resources, which helps organisations to integrate new and effective approaches to inclusive education.Hugely successful VET course which saw us develop 9 modules instead of 6 with the investment of our additional intellectual output days reallocated from meeting and multiplier events. The TRUE Curriculum contains 9 modules to a very high standard (as verified through pilot testing) a learning framework including outcomes and assessment guides, and a pack of multimedia learning resources designed to be used by trainers in classroom scenarios to teach women from immigrant or ethnic minority backgrounds an engaging and usable entrepreneurial skillset. In all, there have been 13,400+ downloads of some part of IO2, • The course/elements of the English course were downloaded 4221 times with the learning framework education guides downloaded 355 and the learning resource pack downloaded 339 times • The Italian course was downloaded almost 3000 times, the Swedish course was downloaded over 2,500 times and the Turkish course almost 3,000 times. IO3 A multilingual online training course is available in 4 languages builds professional capabilities and self-confidence for female migrants and refugees directly empowering them to engage with their new local community. The online courses are very interactive with quizzes, additional resources and a discussion facility for learners to engage with. It has been created in the Ted-Ed platform, hence it has a very good reach. Pilot testing shows that we surpassed all the measurement metrics for satisfactory learning outcomes content is very useful, very relevant and the content as user friendly. Our web stats show the online course access has exceeded 3,000 learners. Our Multiplier Events events were obviously affected by COVID restrictions, including the impact of staff sicknesses. However, 4 of the 5 events were able to proceed in total more attended by 138 people through online events in UK Ireland initially and 40 people were able to attend an in-person multiplier event in Turkey. Our dissemination activities again surpassed our expectations, our website www.throughenterprise.eu and social media channels achieved visits of 18,760 people to engage with our materials and information exceeding the target of 10,000. TRUE has benefitted and yielded tangible results for our target groups: - MIGRANT WOMEN who were previously excluded or marginalized in the labour market, are empowered to unlock their professional and personal capabilities. Some will go on to create businesses, many will use their entrepreneurial skillset for other employment, social or community benefits. - VET COLLEGES, ENTERPRISE CENTRES and other education providers have gained greater awareness regarding the importance of inclusive entrepreneurship education and new and improved resources to cater to the needs of migrant women through the lens of inclusion, diversity and intercultural integration. - COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS (WOMEN FOCUSED, MIGRANT SERVICES etc) have the resources to understand the value of entrepreneurship skills thanks to new relationships with VET organizations and will be able to refer beneficiaries to the open, online course as an immediate path for training and career development. - PROJECT PARTNERS have been the first to benefit from the ability to integrate new approaches to inclusive education and their work in synergy with organisations from other sectors. Staff have a greater appreciation of the more modern, professional environment and are also more capable of work on high scale international collaborative projects. - WIDER STAKEHOLDERS from across the VET, community and migrant services sectors were exposed to new forms of inclusive entrepreneurship education and are more likely to commit to more practical strategies for improving inclusion and diversity on a wider level.