Identify competencies, promote empowerment

Starting position/challenge

Although many female immigrants have obtained professional qualifications or an academic degree in their home countries, their integration into the labour market in non-regulated professions is often unsuccessful. After having completed several training courses, some give up on their goal of finding a job so their potential remains unused. These failures are partly due to the fact that many migrant women in Germany are confronted with professional practices and structural conditions which are unknown to them. However, they often do not interpret these in a social context but perceive them as personal inadequacies. The task of the project “Female migrants in Bavaria - competent in the labour market” in the Network IQ Bavaria - MigraNet is to break these trends, remove obstacles and support the empowerment of women.

Implementation of the bridge training

Through networking with the equal opportunities officers at the regional branches of the Federal Employment Agency at the respective project locations and through contacts with migrant organisations and advice centres for migrant women, voluntary participants are recruited for the project. The project concept focuses on individual support and socio-pedagogical care for women with a migration history. At the beginning of the training measure, the participants will be individually assessed for their competences. The project staff, who have a migration history themselves, identify individual needs. They encourage the participants to reflect on their own resources and potentials, consider together what a future career might look like, explore career opportunities and motivate them to participate in training or further education programs.

Further focal points of the five-module training measure are information and advice on the recognition of professional qualifications, the analysis of experiences in the application process and the expansion of labour market skills through communication and application training and the revision of application files. Support is provided across all modules in the search for internships and jobs and, if further advice is required, it is passed on to other advice centres. Each series of modules, in which the project staff members are selectively supported by specialist advisers, includes between five and eight appointments. This depends on both the number of participants and their interests.

Conclusion

Since 2015, 82 participants have been reached in five Bavarian cities. Several graduates were placed into internships, occasionally they found a job as a result. In addition, a network was set up together with the participants, in which women with a migration background can support each other by sharing their experiences.