HOPE project: Identifying skills gained in life

Nikolina Garača, social service worker based in the Balkans, answers three quick questions on the project “Helping women gain power in their lives” (HOPE). The project’s aim is to help women to identify their competences gained in informal environments, be it in family or through coping with challenges in their life.

1. What is the objective of the HOPE project?

The goal is to reduce the poverty and social exclusion of women, which is a central concern of the European Commission and the United Nations. The project seeks to guide women with fewer opportunities in Northern Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia towards securing employment, education or training, and successfully (re-)integrating into social and economic systems.

The background for this is that women are more exposed to situations that put them at risk of poverty due to, for example, interrupted employment or part-time work coupled with childcare, and low independent income.

The situation has been further worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, which accentuated traditional gender roles, and its consequences such as increased unemployment among women and pay inequity between women and men.

The project is being implemented by the German Institute for Adult Education (DIE) with partners from Northern Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia.

2. How to achieve the objective? What are the outcomes so far?

The main targets of HOPE are counsellors working with women with fewer opportunities. The counsellors are being trained and given tools for identifying the competences. The women are being offered high-quality counselling, competence assessment and career guidance.

All project materials, such as the target group-specific ProfilPASS for women at risk of poverty, HOPE-Toolkit, manual and curriculum, are in open access and free for download on the project webpage. The most important output is the new tool for competence assessment and empowerment, “ProfilPASS for Women – We can do it!”.

3. From theory to practice: How is the counselling organised?

In 2023, more than 30 counsellors are being trained to use the project materials in their work with women. The counsellors come from HOPE partner organisations in Germany, Slovenia, Serbia, and North Macedonia.

Then, during the testing phase, 120 women with fewer opportunities from these four countries will have their competences assessed through counselling with the tool “ProfilPASS for Women – We can do it!”.

The counselling itself entails individual meetings and group sessions where women are able to network and receive support from their peers. This brings them one step closer to securing a job, further education or a training opportunity.