Women play a major role in civil society and in the economic growth of rural areas: they are a driving force for their maintenance, conservation and development, both in cultural and socioeconomic terms. They not only contribute to the preservation of traditions but they also represent a considerable proportion of the workforce in the labour market and strengthen the countryside in the face of a constant process of depopulation. The function played by women in help to maintain vibrant communities and viable businesses is crucial for the development and sustainability of the rural areas. Despite their crucial contribution, rural women still face numerous economic, social, cultural and educational challenges. More concretely, the gender gap caused by difficulties accessing the labour market, the unequal treatment as regards employment opportunities, job remuneration and participation in decision-making is wider in rural areas. The access to lifelong learning, the opportunity to validate skills acquired in a non-formal environment, and to re-train and to acquire knowledge, skills and competences that can be used in a dynamically developing labour market are crucial prerequisites for increasing women’s employment and living conditions in rural areas. In this context, the RuralFemmes project seeks the empowerment and support of women through the promotion and improvement of their training and education. The partners will work together to transnationally design, implement and evaluate a training and coaching programme addressed to rural woman workers, based on their own identified needs. The main project result will be a tailor made training and coaching programme addressed to rural women to acquire and foster key skills and competences for their daily work and life. The training experience will allow women workers not only to acquire key competences useful at work and for their daily life, but also some skills and capacities to increase their job opportunities in key rural economic activities, other than “traditional” agriculture. It will structured in two main groups: • Basic transversal skills: to train final beneficiaries in key basic competences (mathematical, digital and entrepreneurial skills, communication, learning to learn, etc.), prioritising to the identified necessities. • Specific technical competences to up skill/reskill women workers in their economic sector of interest: sustainable agriculture, tourism, entrepreneurship. Given that the training contents will be based on the needs analysis carried out at regional level, the programme will emphasize its transnational character, so that it can be applied and transferred to other European countries. From the qualitatively point of view, the project will: • Identify and analyse the main needs and challenges faced by working women in rural areas. Such needs will focus on the field of training, although the social, economic and cultural components will be properly addressed. • Create and implement a training programme based on the analyses carried out at the regional level, in a way that responds to the needs and challenges identified by both the final beneficiaries and other relevant stakeholders. • Highlight, recognize and give viability to the role played by women in both the rural labour market the society; and promote gender equality processes both in training and in the presence of women in the agricultural labor market and in related sectorial associations and networks. • Formulate and propose recommendations that can improve policies related to fostering education and training for rural women and achieving gender equality. RuralFemmes will achieve the following results during the project lifetime: • A personalized training scheme, the RuralFemmes training programme. • A transnational composite analysis on the educational, socio-economic and cultural needs and challenges of women in rural areas. • Four regional analysis on target groups’ needs. • At least 160 interviews with the target group and some focus groups with rural women. • The formation of regional support groups, the women’s support think tanks, composed of relevant stakeholders and women’ representatives in each partner country. • Pilot training courses (at least 48 beneficiaries) in the 4 participating countries. • Creation and update of a project website and connection and interaction in social networks. • A project video. RuralFemmes has been built based on their technical capacities, communication skills, geographical balance and direct contact to the final beneficiaries. The partnership gathers a pool of expertise in adult learning, rural development, entrepreneurship and women support as well as wide experience in management of transnational cooperation projects. The project partnership is composed of relevant institutions from 4 EU countries (France, Ireland, Germany and Spain).
The objective of the project is the empowerment and support of women through the promotion and improvement of their training and education. This has been reached through the design, implementation and evaluation of a training programme addressed to female rural workers, based on their identified needs. The training needs of the rural women were identified thought surveys and focus groups that allowed partners to spot the areas of interest in which women wanted to be trained. The focus groups and the think tanks were crucial to further explore the training needs of these women. Once the needs were identified, partners designed a training programme addressed to the demand and needs of rural women and delivered the concerning training sessions. This training programme was evaluated by the trainers and the trainees. This allowed partners not only to propose some recommendations for the improvement of the training programme but also for policy makers, training institutions, advisory service providers and researchers.
Despite their crucial contribution, rural women still face numerous economic, social, cultural and educational challenges. More concretely, the gender gap caused by difficulties accessing the labour market, the unequal treatment as regards employment opportunities, job remuneration and participation in decision-making is wider in rural areas. The project addresses the needs of women given the changes faced by the rural areas: new trainings and long-life learnings. The access to lifelong learning, the opportunity to validate skills in a non-formal environment, and the acquisition of knowledge, skills and competences that can be used in a dynamically developing labour market are crucial for increasing women’s employment and living conditions in rural areas. All project partners aim to increase the participation of women in training activities and facilitate the increase of women in agriculture and rural activities to create employment opportunities in rural areas. Rural Femmes project has been an opportunity to achieve this goal together with a broader point of view and improve the results obtained.