Women Making Waves – Enhancing Female Leadership Skills Erasmus Project

Project Title

Women Making Waves – Enhancing Female Leadership Skills

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

In only 10 EU countries do women account for at least 25% of board members. Despite the EC’s proposed Directive to accelerate progress improving gender balance on corporate boards and a slight increase of 2.1% per year between 2010-2016, the proportion of women who are board members is still around 1 in 14. This is even lower among top executives with only 5.1% of large listed companies in EU having a female CEO (Gender balance on corporate boards, 2016). Women with a double disadvantage face further barriers to advancement across Europe including stereotypes about their abilities, lack of role models or mentoring, limited management experience and family obligations.
This issue needs addressing through the empowerment of women not only in the early stages of their careers, but also consistently during their career progression, by developing their leadership strengths. Women Making Waves aims to not only strengthen double disadvantaged women’s leadership skills and build their self-confidence, it also aims to raise awareness of the gender gap in leadership positions.
Many double disadvantaged women lack confidence and are often underemployed. A number of factors can prevent career progression including an old fashioned belief that the woman’s place is not in leadership.
5 partners based in all areas of the EU will develop a special dual training methodology combining online (Women Making Waves Academy) and face-to-face (Women Making Waves Training Programme and Leaders Circles™) learning that can be applied in any career path participants aim to take. This programme will be tested with a minimum of 40 women with a double disadvantage (NEET, migrant, disabled, in early career stages, women from rural areas, women returning to work after a long absence or pursuing a new career path).
The combination of the on- and offline training programmes brings a flexible approach to participants’ learning experience (e-learning has proven to increase information retention rates by up to 60% – The Research Institute of America) while still taking into account the specific and individual needs of each participant. This will increase the opportunities of women to engage in the project and strengthens the quality of learning outcomes.
A key element of the Women Making Waves project is that participants not only acquire theoretical knowledge of the inequalities they are up against, but receive practical tools to combat these inequalities (e.g. soft skills development). Participants’ learning progression will be documented in the Women Making Waves Portfolio developed by each participant. The Portfolio is a tool offered through the e-learning platform for learners to reflect on their learning path and set future goals regarding their leadership skills. Participants will have the chance to reflect on their own learning experience and will be able to share their experience with other learners through the Women Making Waves Community, and have access to online training materials through the Women Making Waves Academy.
Women Making Waves will not only foster women’s leadership qualities and empower them to take on leadership positions, it will also take all opportunities to raise awareness about women’s underrepresentation in leadership positions. The main tool that will shed light on this issue is the Women Making Waves Policymakers Guide, demonstrating the importance of policies and programmes to build women’s confidence and leadership skills across the EU. It will set out recommendations to stakeholders and policymakers on how to bridge the existing gender gap in leadership positions, based on the project results and linked to existing government strategies to offer further support in successfully achieving their objectives.
Women Making Waves aims to be an all-inclusive project where everyone can play a role in fighting gender inequalities. The Policymakers Guide will therefore be aimed at and relevant for both the direct project beneficiaries (double disadvantaged women) and indirect target groups (policymakers, formal and non-formal educational institutions, coaches, intermediaries, stakeholders, employment agencies, businesses and other interested parties) of the project. The project will hereby reach a twofold and highly sustainable impact:
1.Double disadvantaged women will be fully empowered to raise their self-confidence and employability profile in order to attain stronger leadership position and combat the existing gender inequalities;
2.It will raise awareness of the inequalities and challenges women face while trying to pursue a leadership position and the missed opportunities of not using female leadership to its full potential, and will include recommendations and methods on how to challenge these current trends. Hereby, it will encourage all actors involved in personal and educational development, employment growth and policymaking to actively combat these inequalities and become truly inclusive and equal.

Project Website

https://womenmakingwaves.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 236742 Eur

Project Coordinator

Jafnréttisstofa & Country: IS

Project Partners

• Icelandic Regional Development Institute
• INSTITUTE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
• INOVA CONSULTANCY LTD
• AGRUPACION EMPRESARIAL INNOVADORA DE FABRICANTES DE MUEBLES Y AFINES DE LA REGION DE MURCIA