An Empowerment Toolkit for Trainers for the Development of the Social and Cultural Competence and Media Literacy for Low Skilled Migrant Women – EMKIT2

Project summary

The EU migrant crisis has a direct reflection on migrant employment rates. The gap in labor market participation at EU level between EU citizens and migrants has increased in 2014 (Eurostat–Migrant Integration Statistics-Employment). During the last eight years, the activity rate (% of active persons in comparison to the total population) of the EU-28 population of non-EU countries has recorded systematically lower activity rates than EU citizens. Since 2009, this gap has increased noticeably (3 % points). Also the unemployment rate per sex and educational background is higher for migrant women with low educational background (Eurostat). Cultural, social barriers, low skills and media illiteracy discourage these women from actively seeking for jobs. As a result the pressure is enormous on the welfare systems and society itself of the EU-28 countries. This project suggests the empowerment of low skilled migrant women by developing 42 digital tools for trainers for implementing innovative workshops to develop the social, civic, cultural and media literacy (SCM) competences to achieve active citizenship This project builds upon a successfully completed project, EMKIT. The objective of EM-KIT was to tailor an empowerment online tool for trainers in order to empower low skilled migrant women to reach active citizenship (AC). EMKIT was based on the AC ladder (scale), an innovation introduced in EMKIT. This scale suggests that a woman who is living in isolation (stage 1) must progress through all stages in order to achieve AC. These stages are: *Isolation *Going Outside *Joining In *Voluntary Work *Working on Professional Qualifications *Active Citizenship EMKIT toolkit also includes 35 digital interactive tools (i.e. 35 activities/short workshops) that can be implemented to address the needs of migrant women, depending on their stage on the active citizenship ladder. EMKIT2 aims to: 1. Develop 3 Qualification Frameworks for the Social & Civic (S), Cultural Awareness & Expression(C) and Media Competence(M) (SCM competences) tailored for the specific target group in a specific context (i.e. migrant women to reach active citizenship) 2. Based on the Learning Outcomes of the QFs developed enrich activities offered at each stage by designing 42 new experiential and innovative workshops for the development of the SCM competences. 3. Develop 42 digital tools for the newly developed workshops for trainers for the development of the SCM competences and incorporate then in the existing EMKIT online tool. 4. Introduce & develop a digital assessment tool and incorporate it on the existing EMKIT toolkit in order to assess the stage that a migrant woman and validate the results of the empowerment process, that is evaluate whether the workshops delivered have helped the woman to progress on the next stage of the active citizenship scale. The direct target group is trainers/mentors who work with migrant women (i.e. trainers in Adult Education Providers implementing projects funded by Integration Funds/Daphne & Justice Projects and volunteers/mentors working at NGOs and associations providing guidance and training services to migrants). Trainers will benefit by a more complete EMKIT tool that also develops 3 important context specific competences. Also, migrant women will benefit by provisioning a high-quality tool that encompasses activities enabling them to become active citizens in the new societies and at the same time provide them with the means for a more fulfilling life. During the lifetime of the project 468 trainers and 560 migrant women will participate in the project activities. The methodology used for the development of the outputs is based on the following principles: 1) All partners participate in the development of all the outputs so that the outputs have a European dimension 2) Each output is led by the partner whose experience is more related to the nature and context of the output and big part of development is done by that partner 3) Experts' focus groups, desktop research and pilot activities are implemented where necessary in order to ensure that the outputs are complete and scientifically validated Results & Impact Envisaged: 1) Improve access to the labour market of low skilled migrant women 2) Promotion of the Social, Civic, Cultural Awareness, Expression and Media Literacy Competences (SCM competences), among learners and specifically to low skilled migrant women and other disadvantaged groups 3) Create a momentum of innovative and experiential workshop offerings by Adult Training providers in a wide scale 4) Expand the network of trainers, mentors, education providers, NGOS and Associations working with migrants using EMKIT2 to all 28EU member states 5)Establish EMKIT2 as a standard toolkit used by NGOs, associations, training providers and mentors for providing better mentoring and training services to the target group. 6) Improve the quality of workshops offered for the SCM competences