As the Social Counselor Hiila O'Brien declared that trained immigrant women can act as bridge builders in a globalizing world. Finns get a lot of new perspectives on their work from immigrants and learn new customs and culture. At the same time, the Finnish cultural and international vision will be developing further. Moreover immigrants, especially women, still face difficulties in finding employment (https://goo.gl/AeM7E8). Although there are no specific statistics explaining the detailed picture of gender imbalance of migrant owned SMEs, one could imagine that the situation is not better than globally existing from immigrant women point of view. i-Mentor project targets to improve gender balance and reduce the gender gap of immigrant women owned businesses; promoting the empowerment of immigrant women via supporting/strengthening their small/micro businesses with the mentoring support of i-Mentors, by developing a systematic approach to introduce business angel model oriented mentoring concept; aiming to e-train and e- guide those immigrant women-owned SMEs, based on supplying more enhanced initial and continuous training for those who would have proper background and talent, and want to be a mentor for women in work-based environment. In recognition of the prevalence of this gender imbalance (5th goal) and sustainable economic growth (8th goal), the 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which came into force on January 1, 2016 (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/); it was declared as the global gender pay gap stands at 23% globally and without decisive action, it will take another 68 years to achieve equal pay. Women’s labor force participation rate is 63% while that of men is 94% . i-Mentor has been designed for supporting the Europe's need in this gender balance efforts, in parallel to above mentioned UN's 2030 Agenda and also EC initiatives regarding to supporting SMEs' growth (https://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/support/networks_en) by establishing many networks and support channels; consequently bringing a new e-VET based approach, supporting the creation of new vocation, business angel model based mentoring and tackling the problem via this channel. For this purpose, i-Mentor will perform: - business life (small/micro) & mentoring practical multi-level e-learning "content need" analysis, by holding practical and intelligent surveys by the aid of partner women NGOs and SMEs, as well as rest of VET and R/D performer partners, in all project countries, - Develop multi-level business life & mentoring e-learning and e-guiding platform for mentees and mentors, - Test the whole system, including mentor-mentee relations extending to business angel model, individual information seekers responses, e-guiding performance by using intelligent and interactive feedback toolkit, - Optimize the overall system by using the continuous feedback and include both volunteer and business angel based model mentors for better sustainability of the complete i-Mentor system; and finally justify the new mentoring model's efficiency. At the end of the performance, we expect to end up with a working and more efficient mentoring model supporting immigrant women owned small/micro businesses and seeing both target groups benefiting from the result both from business and self-development perspectives. The partnership has been established to be able to realize all this i-Mentor environment as: - TAITAJA [FI] - Finnish adult VET body, - LEEAN [FI] - business life and entrepreneur migrant women owned SME, expert in mentoring, - HSE [FI] - migrant women owned SME, expert in business life, - ZARIF[SK], TAKIDD [TR] - Women NGOs having direct access to target groups from different backgrounds, various expertise including mentoring, - FFE [ES] - VET and entrepreneurship training, - POINT [TR] - R/D performing SME expert in mentoring and development of e-Learning infrastructures as well as e-VET, - AHBV [TR] and WSEI [PL] - Universities having also various business mentoring and start-up support networks in Europe wide, - CTCP [PT] - Chamber, great feedback and quality system developers. where gender imbalance is at around average rate of Europe regarding to employment in general (66.5/78.0=17.29%imbalance), including the total immigrant women in 2017 (Female/Male in percent), except Finland performing a better picture and Turkey being at much more higher rate: Finland 72.4/75.9 (4.83% imbalance), Poland 63.6/78.2 (22.96%), Portugal 69.8/77.3 (10.75%), Slovakia 64.7/77.5 (19.78%), Spain 59.6/71.5 (19.97%) and Turkey 34.5/76.1 (120.58%).
i-Mentor has been designed for supporting the Europe's need in this gender balance efforts, in parallel to UN's 2030 Agenda and EC initiatives regarding to supporting SMEs' growth (https://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/support/networks_en) by establishing many networks and support channels. Bringing a new e-VET based approach to support the creation of new vocation, business angel model-based mentoring and tackling the problem via i-Mentor portal. Entrepreneurship offers immigrant women the opportunity to earn income and be an independent actor in society in the new home country. To participate and work in collaboration with the network to create a functional I-mentor portal that will benefit the immigrants and newcomers with their questions of settling to European environment and starting their own enterprise or just being entrepreneurs. The objective is to enhance the inclusion into the society. MENTORS find new information for mentoring through the Mentors section of the i-Mentor portal which consider the needs of immigrants. Online mentoring can happen from anywhere and anytime, traveling time and costs are saved. Online i-mentor training for generating a new position "business angel mentoring", who support these potential entrepreneur migrant women (mentees). Portal offers continuously updated training to its i-Mentors - how to be a mentor. MENTEES easily find information about what it means to be a mentee and what mentoring entails. The i-Mentor portal also contains practical information on entrepreneurship and in general society's expectations for entrepreneurs in Europe. Objective was to create a portal that will help immigrants with their question is settling to new living environment. The working cultural background is very different compared to European and other cultures for example Asian and Chinese. Similarly, the society works differently that is why the portal that collects some to the most important aspects is important and helpful for newcomers. Online information and knowledge base, to supply practical mentoring information in a very compact way - how to be a mentee. i-Mentor program helps mentees to exercise their talents, overcome barriers and create their own path to success while making a positive impact on their lives and communities. i-Mentor program supplies a practical tips and hints for increasing the awareness of potential migrant women- owned SMEs. This platform serves i-Mentor project's target groups: mentors, mentees, and other users.
i-Mentor project targets to improve gender balance and reduce the gender gap of immigrant women owned businesses; promoting the empowerment of immigrant women via supporting/strengthening their small/micro businesses with the mentoring support of i-Mentors by developing a systematic approach to introduce business angel model-oriented mentoring concept. It is aiming to e-train and e- guide those immigrant women-owned SMEs which are based on supplying more enhanced initial and continuous training for those who would have proper background and talent. And for persons who want to be a mentor for women in work-based environment. Project participants aimed to share their experiences within the partnership for cooperative development of I-Mentor training portal content for multiple business sectors across borders and regardless of the origin of the entrepreneurs. The i-Mentor program can be used in educational institutions as additional material for entrepreneurship training. Especially the language options offered by i-Mentor can support learning. The i-Mentor program offers immigrant women support in finding new employment opportunities, considering the flexibility offered by entrepreneurship, and utilizing their own skills even if they are not employed in new home country. The i-Mentor program has two separate sections on the same portal. One for mentees and one for mentors. The mentors section provides information on the special characteristics of mentoring immigrant women, why it is needed and how it is reflected in mentoring. This section is also useful for mentors in other target groups. Interesting was the production of pan-European knowledge and the integration of cultures. The creation of the portal was seen an advantage to ease out and help those who are seeking information in their settling into foreign countries. In addition, the technical implementation of the portal and the provision of a mobile version increased interest in participating in the project.