CONTEXT/BACKGROUND OF PROJECT Within the context of the Europe 2020 Strategy, entrepreneurship is seen as a means of boosting employment and in particular to reaching the European employment target of 75% for women and men throughout the EU by 2020. The OECD and the European Commission aim to build more inclusive economies and societies, social enterprises link economic and social value creation and play a key role in making this a reality. They create new jobs, are a vehicle for efficient and effective service delivery, enhance citizens’ participation in their communities, and turn innovative ideas into action for the benefit of the society (Boosting Social Enterprise Development, OECD/European Union, 2017). Social enterprise is an under-utilised source for gender equal opportunity, indeed, globally, only 29% of women’s rights organisations use income generation activities. Many lack the information, competences, tools and resources to take advantage of social enterprise. Data from the UK suggests the pay gap between men and women in social enterprise is 24% the same as the global average women are under-represented in leadership of social enterprise in 4/5 and this is worse the larger the organisation (Activist to entrepreneur, the role of social enterprise in supporting women’s empowerment, British Council 2017/ G086). The WISE project aims to create leadership opportunities for women in the field of social entrepreneurship and tackle working environment based gender segregation to improve equality. WISE OBJECTIVES - To foster social inclusion of women from all ethnic, faith and social backgrounds, to increase their employability, skills development, entrepreneurial education and finalisation of innovative social business ideas, by providing with a safe space to become active members of society. - To empower Adult Educators through capacity-building activities aimed to equip them with innovative tools to address Women’s challenges and to support and facilitate creation of social enterprise; - To promote intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding of cultures by ensuring cultural diversity among the participants PARTICIPANTS Direct target groups: 182 unemployed women of disadvantaged background 60 Women with social entrepreneurial experience 30 Adult Educators Indirect target groups: 285 Training centres, community learning centres, women’s organisations ACTIVITIES and METHODOLOGY Active participation and holistic approach will be transversal to all project activities. 1. Research and Development phase: During IO1, Partners will collect quantitative and qualitative data through the active participation of WISE’s Direct Target Groups. 2. Testing Phase: after the first version of the development of the learning materials (IO2 and first part of IO3, 4, 5), the Adult Educators and Mentors, supported by Project staff in each country, will pilot it with Women learners. In this phase, cooperation, participation and a strong evidence base will be part of the methodology. 3. Evaluation and Finalisation phase: A formal evaluation coordinated by P2 will precede the mainstreaming activities (dissemination, led by P4) to ensure high-quality outputs. Based on evaluation’s results, IOs will be adapted and finalised. 4. Exploitation phase: The last phase of the project will be the strategic exploitation of project results. IO1 results will lead to IO2. Also, the experiences from the testing and evaluation of IO2 will feed in IO3,4,5. The development of IO5 will follow a HOLISTIC approach that brings together the participative results of IO1, and the evidence-based development of IO2. The project will impact upon both local communities and practices of Adult Educators. Target groups, indirect beneficiaries and stakeholders will be reached through local events and international conference and project activities. Tangible Outputs: - A Contemporary Comparative Study on Social Enterprises in EU Economies and the role of Women within these Social Enterprises (IO1); - European Training Module: What are social enterprises and why do they enable women to develop their own labour market opportunities (IO2) - A Step by Step Guide and “WISE” Course Manual for Adult Educators (IO3) - A Training for Peers/Mentors (IO4) - Self Directed Training Module and Resource Bank for Women Social Entrepreneurs (IO5) In the long-term, WISE will contribute to improve participants' quality life. WISE will innovate training at a European level by providing a flexible template that meets adult educators’ needs and that can be adapted to different contexts and topics. A relevant and high quality training for adult educators in supporting social business development will endeavour to create more inclusive and equal societies throughout Europe.
- To foster social inclusion of women from all ethnic, faith and social backgrounds, to increase their employability, skills development, entrepreneurial education and finalisation of innovative social business ideas, by providing with a safe space to become active members of society. WISE’s goal was to create a network of empowered women leaders within social enterprise and business who could in turn empower other women through peer mentoring and creating viable and sustainable employment and learning opportunities to other women,benefitting the indidual, the planet and the place they live. - To empower Adult Educators through capacity-building activities aimed to equip them with innovative tools to address Women’s challenges and to support and facilitate creation of social enterprise. It is important that adult educators are able to understand the important part that social enterprises play in local economic areas, skills development and job creation. It was important for adult educators to understand about social enterprises both in terms of the opportunities they give to women to become business leaders but also the opportunities they can provide to the adult education sector as a who to support them to enable and empower their learners to meet their learning goals. - To promote intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding of cultures by ensuring cultural diversity among the participants Benefits for the target groups - Women of marginalised groups aspiring to become social entrepreneurs: Working in peers, accessing mentoring leadership opportunities, to increase knowledge on the subject & methodology through participation in IOs development, focus groups & piloting activities, to gain skills in entrepreneurship activities, to increased self-confidence, to increased digital skills & digital awareness as a consequence of women participation to focus groups and IO5 piloting. - Women business leaders from Social Enterprise: To increase collaboration with other entrepreneurs around Europe, to gain stronger resource efficiency thanks to EU collaboration, to strengthen engagement with local businesses & organizations stimulating development, visibility of their business. To increase active participation and positive engagement within their communities -Adult Educators: To increase job satisfaction due to increased dialogue & collaboration with peers, to increase intrinsic motivation to experiment & widen interests as a practitioner, to improve skills in developing trainings and activities for learning entrepreneurs. To form local partnership with women business leaders of social enterprise in order to form working relationship and partnerships which can support their learners realise their potential. -Participating organisations (indirect target groups): Stronger collaboration at EU level, improved quality of EU project for the preparation, implementation phase; -Training centres: stronger opportunity to develop collaboration, open dialogue & engagement. EU COLLABORATION Delivery of EU wide outputs across 6 countries will ensure maximum reach to wide number of target groups & social enterprise diversity contributing to innovating training and mentoring methods & providing EU led solutions to gender inequality issues. Each country has different policies for tackling & approaching Social Enterprise, and as a result will bring own experience & expertise to develop outputs with Europe-wide relevance. Also, All the IOs will be translated in the partner languages, this will support the higher impact of WISE.
Globally gender inequality is a significant issue effecting societies. Women and girls are at greater risk of poverty, violence and abuse than men. Furthermore they are less likely to run businesses or be in positions of leadership; and on average they earn 75 % less than men. This is still the case in 2022 as it was when the project was created in 2019 and it could be argued that this gender gap has been exacerbated by COVID-19 global pandemic. This means that the needs that WISE was designed to address are as relevant now as they were. The UN’s Sustainable Goal (SDG) 5 is to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.’ The WISE project has demonstrated a clear and effective method on how to achieve this and can contribute to reaching this goal by 2030 In the UK, Social enterprise offers more leadership opportunities for women, indeed, 40 % of social enterprises have a woman leader as against 18% of for-profit enterprises (Source: British Council report 2017). The 2017 edition of the OECD report “Missing Entrepreneurs” states that people in disadvantaged groups in EU are still less likely to be involved in business creation and self-employment activities than the mainstream population. The report emphasises “the need to continue to encourage and support entrepreneurship, especially for groups that are under-represented and disadvantaged in the labour market, i.e. women, youth, seniors, the unemployed and immigrants.” And recommends “Supporting these groups with entrepreneurship training, coaching and mentoring”. The WISE project has addressed these current challenges and the need to reduce gender inequality in work environments through the promotion of social enterprises and social entrepreneurship as a viable and tangible of women gaining and achieving in business leadership roles thus empowering women and in turn empowering other women through employment and training opportunities. We have done this through the development of innovative tools which work effectively individually and within groups. It has also been effective in the promotion of social enterprise as a business model which has supported local economies making them more sustainable and inclusive. WISE followed the 2018-2023 Council of EU Gender Equality Strategy, stating “Groups of women(notably women with low levels of qualifications, migrant, ethnic minority women…) face particular challenges, including enhanced difficulty to join the labour market, higher levels of precariousness and related risks, of poverty and social exclusion". Furthermore, the EU Agenda for Adult Learning highlights the need to significantly improve the education of adult educators by 2020. OBJECTIVES - To foster social inclusion of women from all ethnic, faith and social backgrounds, to increase their employability, skills development, entrepreneurial education and finalisation of innovative social business ideas, by providing with a safe space to become active members of society. - To empower Adult Educators through capacity-building activities aimed to equip them with innovative tools to address Women’s challenges and to support and facilitate creation of social enterprise; - To promote intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding of cultures by ensuring cultural diversity among the participants NEEDS & TARGET GROUPS - Women of marginalised groups aspiring to become social entrepreneurs: Working in peers, accessing mentoring leadership opportunities, to increase knowledge on the subject & methodology through participation to IOs development, focus groups & piloting activities, to gain skills in entrepreneurship activities, to increased self-confidence, to increased digital skills & digital awareness as a consequence of women participation to focus groups and IO5 piloting. - Women business leaders from Social Enterprise: To increase collaboration with other entrepreneurs around Europe, to gain stronger resource efficiency thanks to EU collaboration, to strengthen engagement with local businesses & organizations stimulating development, visibility of their business. To increase active participation and positive engagement within their communities -Adult Educators: To increase job satisfaction due to increased dialogue & collaboration with peers, to increase intrinsic motivation to experiment & widen interests as a practitioner, to improve skills in developing trainings and activities for learning entrepreneurs. -Participating organisations (indirect target groups): Stronger collaboration at EU level, improved quality of EU project for the preparation, implementation phase; -Training centres: stronger opportunity to insert programme on critical thinking in other schools, developing collaboration, open dialogue & engagement. EU COLLABORATION Delivery of EU wide outputs across 6 countries has ensured maximum reach to wide number of target groups & social enterprise diversity contributing to innovating training and mentoring methods & providing EU led solutions to gender inequality issues. Each country have different policies for tackling & approaching Social Enterprise, and as a result will bring own experience & expertise to develop outputs with Europe-wide relevance. Also, All the IOs have been translated in the partner languages, this will support the higher impact of the project.