Transnational Partnership "Women - Now!" has been created by Partners from France ("EUROP@CTE"), Great Britain ("Women on the Move"), Poland ("Work and dignity life for women victims of violence") and from Slovakia ("Aid to Children in Danger").

Common interests
The global aim of the transnational partnership ‘Women – Now!’ is to promote the development of local, national and European policies and strategies regarding the socio economic integration of marginalised women, with particular focus on women who have a criminal record, and women who have been the victims/survivors of domestic abuse and violence. All partners recognise the impact and influence of cultural diversity and multiple disadvantage experienced by the beneficiary group.

The partnership seeks to exchange strategies and methodologies, which support, enable and empower marginalised women and facilitate their socio economic reintegration into the labour market.
The partners have identified the following common issues:

• Institutions and agencies do not take into account the specific needs of the target group
• Services for the target group are fragmented
• There is a need to build capacity in organisations delivering services to the target group
• To identify barriers to marginalised women (with particular focus on women within the criminal justice system, and women survivors/victims of domestic abuse and violence) in accessing work opportunities
• To test creative and innovative ways to empower marginalised women and support their reintegration into the labour market
• To build self esteem and encourage women to take control of their lives and their choices
• To recognise the social, economic and cultural diversity of the target groups and work to overcome discrimination in the workplace
• To raise the awareness of social,economic and cultural diversity and discrimination
• To ensure the social inclusion, employment and training of marginalised women is mainstreamed at a local, national and European level

The issues identified above will introduce new ideas on effective practice in each country and facilitate shared learning.

The common objectives of the DPs:

• Each have women as their main target group although each DP has women with different backgrounds and capacities
• Empowering disadvantaged women to support each other
• Creative methods will be used to target and involve the beneficiaries
• They aim to acquire more information about marginalised women and their surroundings
• Sharing experiences of empowering marginalised women in society
• Involving women in new or alternative activities
• To assist marginalised women in gaining employment and training
• The partnership will concentrate on adoption of new approaches to promote equality of opportunity through negotiation with transnational partners

The types of activities/products envisaged are:

• Transnational workshops on peer support and peer research
• Workshops/seminars on mentoring for disadvantaged women
• An online discussion forum for exchange of information
• Exchange of website links
• Innovative intervention models of supporting the beneficiary group into the labour market
• A leaflet stating the objectives in a clear and concise manner that contains contact and website information
• Making recommendations in relation to the potential impact/change on national and European policy, strategies and procedures through dissemination at European conferences/seminars
• Sharing experiences of equal opportunities and diversity issues in the respective partner countries
• Developing a mechanism for monitoring and evaluation of the TP.

Added value on the strategy and intended results of each of the DPs involved
The TP creates added value in the following ways:

• It brings together partners that have considerable experience in addressing the problems faced by disadvantaged women including women from ethnic minority backgrounds
• It brings together DPs emerging from the public, private and NGO sectors. As such it provides a basis for jointly examining common issues and needs from a variety of ‘starting positions’
• All partners have considerable experience of working at a European level
• Shared practice will result in new ideas on effective practice in each country and challenge existing practices
• Enhance the recognition of the impact of different aspects of multiple disadvantages and identify effective models of intervention
• Demonstrate the impact of multi-agency partnership approaches
• Raise awareness of cultural diversity and discrimination
• Stimulate and support women to undertake training and employment in order to reach their full potential
• Exchange of beneficiaries, trainers, staff and DP members. This will facilitate joint design and development.

(extract from the TCA)

Print