On 18 and 19 May 2022, the first meeting of the EMPOWER project was held in Copenhagen (Denmark), organized by the lead partner. Connect4 conducted and organised the meeting in an excellent way, in which the project partners participated: Rightchallenge of Portugal, LACONSEIL of Belgium, Wisefour Innovation and Development Organisation Ltd of Cyprus, ASSOCIATION AKTYVISTAI of Lithuania, INNOVATION HIVE of Greece and Gestión Estratégica e Innovación SL of Spain. The main objective of the project is to provide career guidance systems to young women who want to create and run social enterprises or enter the world of entrepreneurship by developing high quality materials and tailor-made training with methods and new tools, more effective and individualized to support them. In addition, the project also addresses:
-> Give young women access to relevant networks by involving stakeholders, organisations active in this field and other decision-makers at the most appropriate level;
-> Promote gender equality and women’s empowerment by creating a model based on social enterprise with an active role for young women leaders.
-> Provide women with the right motivation to start their own business, alone or with others.
During the two-day launch of the project, the first planned action, PR1, namely the development of an empowerment strategy, was discussed. Specifically, the first action of the EMPOWER project is carried out by the partner Wisefour, with the aim of developing transversal competences based on the needs of the people involved, for example in terms of learning strategies, social and entrepreneurial skills, ecological skills and technology.
The successful completion of this first outcome will be crucial for the achievement of the second planned action, PR2, that is to say, the creation of an online course related to the support of the female workforce in the European system and the design of related training materials.
This last step will allow young women entrepreneurs of the future to find a structured online course where they will be able to find useful information and tools to create new businesses.