Abstract:

Migrant women face multiple challenges in the long process of socio- economic integration they go through in their host countries. Persistent and systemic barriers such as gender inequality, intersectional discrimination, limited access to tailor-designed education and services make it difficult for them to find employment, display their full potential and fully engage in civic life.

The difficulties that migrant women encounter shape unique needs, therefore training offered to this target group needs to be gender-sensitive and learner-centred. This paper presents the experience and knowledge built from RELIGHT (Gender Sensitive Entrepreneurial Training and Self-Leadership Skills for Young Immigrant Women Empowerment, project reference: 2023-2-ES02-KA220-YOU-000182856), and European Union co-funded project under the Erasmus+ programme that aimed at empowering young migrant women through an integrated educational approach that combined entrepreneurial competences with self-leaderships awareness and skills.

The project designed and implemented a tailored learning program that addressed both entrepreneurial competences and personal development through self-awareness, self-leadership and reflection.

The training content was tested in the transnational and local scenes. The former consisted in a training course organized in Rome which brought together 20 young women from 7 different countries and explored the topics in depth through a participatory and peer-supporting approach. The latter brought the knowledge and lessons learned to 50 young migrant women in 4 local communities (Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus). These community-based sharing and safe spaces contributed to the creation of support networks through women circles that are extended beyond project life.

Given the young age of the participants and the complexity of the entrepreneurial journey, the project acted as a corner stone and helped three participants shape their specific ideas, accompanied by an action plan that identified the most pressing needs and the specific steps to address them. Also, in the case of two other (Spanish) participants, the course helped them realize the need for additional training, so an orientation session of European opportunities was organized. Two participants were accepted in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Program and in European Solidarity Corps.

The data received from the qualitative feedback, participant reflections and facilitator observations indicated positive outcomes in terms of entrepreneurial mindset, increased awareness of personal and professional path, enhanced self-leadership skills and the development of support networks.

The paper discusses the key pedagogical insights and lessons learned, stressing the importance of gender-sensitive and participatory educational approaches in adult and non-formal learning contexts. The results offer implications for educators, trainers and policy makers who design and implement learning pathways that foster inclusion, empowerment and lifelong learning for migrant women.

Keywords:

Education, training, migrant women, intersectinality, self-leadership.