Female migrants come to Europe for a variety of reasons – as economic migrants, to re-unite with family members, as refugees, etc. However, there is increasing diversity of legal status and the rights attributed to migrant women, and with this come disparity in integration outcomes for female migrants, especially in terms of their economic integration. Research confirms that female migrants face obstacles in their economic integration; both as women and as migrants. They also often take on roles within household and family life, which can further inhibit their access to the labour market. Families who migrate together, often comprise older and younger members who require care, and this responsibility ultimately falls to the woman. As such, when female migrants embark on their migration journey, regardless of the reason, they are often found at an economic disadvantage because of the role they have in the household, and their need to find employment opportunities that will facilitate their family and care commitments. Mastering the host country’s language and accessing its labour market are 2 key steps in any migrant integration process. However, with their domestic commitments, female migrants tend to have worse employment outcomes in comparison with migrant men and native-born women. Promoting entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial mindset can support the advancement of economic integration and is increasingly viewed as an effective approach to overcoming the challenges of integration. Social entrepreneurship has also proven to support the integration of migrants into European society, both through the social enterprises working to support migrant integration and migrants establishing social enterprises (SESN, 2018). Supporting others to integrate; advocating for rights of marginalised groups; celebrating food and different cultures; addressing local needs - these are all actions within the social economy that are relevant to our target group. Despite this potential, migrants, especially female migrants, face particular and obvious barriers to engaging in entrepreneurial activity, which include lack of business skills, underdeveloped entrepreneurial mindset, difficulties in accessing finance; and language, especially business language, and cultural barriers. CHAMELEON aims to address these barriers by developing an introductory-level curriculum that will support female migrants to build their basic skills and confidence, as a first step towards self-employment. The resources developed will support female migrants to develop their entrepreneurial mindset, increase their knowledge of business structures and supports in their host country, improve their business language skills, examine their motivations for taking on this new challenge, spot local opportunities in the social economy and to access alternative funding streams available. As such, while this an entrepreneurship project, it has an adult education focus. Through CHAMELEON, we aim to invest in female migrants, helping them to develop the core skills and competences that will become the building blocks of their economic integration. From our collective experience of delivering projects involving migrant women over the past ten years, the project partners know that if you bring migrant women together for learning in a safe and supported environment and provide opportunities to build self-esteem and confidence, promote language learning, foster friendships and networks, and offer avenues for progression, the results are long-lasting and impactful on the women and their families. As part of the CHAMELEON project we want to change the narrative of migrant women; to move away from the categorisation of women solely as vulnerable and in need of protection, as we have been involved in many projects where migrant and refugee women lead the education and integration process, supporting other female migrants as well as their families and communities. Through CHAMELEON we aim to foster these attributes of female migrants and harness their skills so that they can enhance their own economic integration by exploring the opportunities afforded to them in the social economy. CHAMELEON aims to support migrant women to establish their own social enterprises to overcome the barriers to their economic integration; taking full advantage of the range of online and digital tools available to support business start-ups in Europe today. The project also aims to support migrant women to engage in meaningful networking opportunities by developing a network of like-minded social entrepreneurs in their local communities and across Europe.
A core aim for the Chameleon project was to develop lasting partnerships with key stakeholders and beneficiaries; this would allow ongoing relationships with female migrants through the project's development stages and beyond; ensuring that female migrant voices were heard within the project's work. The approach to developing the curriculum and digital resources came from a bottom-up approach as we worked with the migrant women to ensure we developed their entrepreneurial mindsets to incorporate social enterprise. We wanted to develop a programme that was tailed around the needs of migrant women with aspects such as; migration and me, me being here, my achievements and my strengths. The second section focuses on business planning and marketing, finance in the social economy and bringing ideas to market. We wanted the project to have a legacy and to support female migrants in developing their businesses in the 21st century and so digital skills resources were incorporated into the MOOC which supported social media, cybersecurity and digital footprint resources. In addition, a trainer's guide to running the Chameleon project so that the materials and resources can be passed on to training centres, NGOs and local community groups.
EGS have worked to develop migrants and disadvantaged groups for many years both in our work in the UK and internationally. Our organisation lead is herself a migrant women and so has a strong desire to ensure that women and in particular migrant women are supported where possible. The Chameleon project supports female migrants to set up their own social enterprises to support better integration and to support them for the skills needed to set up and run a business for the digital age. Shared expertise in social enterprise, the arts, skills training for migrants and developing programmes for social good and change were incorporated from the Chameleon projects partners in UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Portugal, France and Italy. The cooperation enabled the partnership to develop: - Localised content which is appropriate for different cultures and communities - A curriculum for female migrants to understand their core strengths and the running of social enterprise - Digital resources to support the needs of developing business ideas - A trainer framework to ensure the legacy of Chameleon and for it to be taught in different communities - A MOOC of resources, curriculum and empowering stories from female migrants