Pal Women is a co-funded project by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union with partners form Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Serbia and Greece with the aim to empower disadvantaged women integration, improve their basic competencies in terms of social entrepreneurship and marketing and enhance their access to training and qualifications through promoting work-place learning and mentoring.

Results of IO1

Under Intellectual Output 1 of Pal Women Project, all partners contributed to the elaboration of a European Entrepreneurial Skills Assessment Report, available in English and also in eachpartner’s language,about the current situation of women from 4 different exclusion groups, Women ex-prisoners, Roma women, Women victims of gender-based violence and Migrant Women, in the partners’ countries and also in 16 more European Countries.

The general objectives of the IO1 were to explore in detail the situation, problems and skills assessment possibilities of women from that exclusion groups segregated per age generations and to propose future actions for the key national stakeholders based on their urgent needs assessed and the necessary skills for entrepreneurial start-up of people with special needs and in special situation.

Ultimately, 8 focus groups were organized in total with the participation of 10 to 12 stakeholders in each partner’s country. In addition, a survey has been conducted by all partners and in total 424 Questionaries were completed, with 381 of them coming from the partners’ countries and the rest 43, collected from other EU countries that have participated in the project.

Training activities

In order to host collaborative virtual environments and to facilitate the implementation of online learning classes, an Online Platform has been developed. At this moment, each partner has provided 3 experts as trainers, in order for them to participate in an online Training of Trainers, that will be held in January and will introduce them in the Learning Curriculum that has been previously prepared, including different topics about basic entrepreneurship procedures and also marketing strategies.

Future steps…

After the completion of the training of the trainers, the actual Training of Learners will begin in February. In this piloting phase, disadvantaged women will have the opportunity to participate in the learning activities that will be implemented via the projects’ Online Platform.

Furthermore, in the last phase of the projects’ implementation an innovative Mentoring procedure will be created with a 6-month duration, during which, at least 40 interested women entrepreneurs will be able to receive an initial support and advices from experienced experts in the sector that they want to work on or are oriented.