STRENGTH WOMEN: Supporting women with a migration background in dealing with digital media

"The integration of low-skilled migrants into society and the world of work is an important and, in all likelihood, increasing task of integration work in Europe in the coming years. The inclusion and use of digitalization in the qualification and integration process will be of crucial importance. Not least in order to counteract existing developments, such as the OECD's assessment that the increasing automation of the world of work [...] particularly threatens the jobs of low-skilled workers."

(see Reuters, Digitalization threatens the jobs of low-skilled workers, 25.04.2019)

The transnational project STRENGTH WOMEN addresses the need and necessity to introduce women with a migration background and low qualifications to digitalization. The aim is to improve job-related German language skills, strengthen digital skills, show employment prospects and thus improve integration into the labor market.

The digital learning arrangements support both women with a migration background and trainers in adult education who work with this target group in dealing with modern, digital media, for which there is currently little or no experience and content.

The project results are 80 ready-to-use digital learning units on 4 learning areas:

• General Qualification for the Working World
• Qualification for inclusion in society
• Qualification for the basic language in the new residential society
• Qualification for the basics of using digital devices to participate in society

For example, within the framework of the first-mentioned learning area for the BAMF course “Migrant women simply strong in everyday life (MiA)” and the federal program “Strong in the workplace”, seminars on the topics “The education system in Germany”, “Using the computer”, “Strengthening self-confidence” and “Consolidating the German language” have already been developed and successfully tested on the target group.

The courses will be published on our STRENGTH homepage at the end of the project and will be available with a common training guide for trainers in adult education who work with this target group.

The STRENGTH WOMEN project has four ambitious goals to be achieved over a three-year period (2021-2024):

• To gain insights into the status and need for action in the implementation of the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp) among low-skilled women with a migration background in the partner countries
• To develop criteria and guidelines for digital learning in the qualification of women with a migration background and to present them in an application-oriented manner
• to develop, locally test and implement digital learning arrangements for the qualification of low-skilled women with a migration background
• To develop curricula for trainers for the use of digital learning arrangements and to implement them in LTTA

STRENGTH WOMEN brings together five institutions from Germany (Bildungszentrum Lernen und Technik gGmbH Dresden and CODIP), Slovenia (LUC – Ljudska univerza Celje), France (Cap Ulysse) and Austria (ORIENT EXPRESS Advisory, Education and Cultural Initiative for Women Women's Service Center) with many years of experience in the areas of migration, media didactics, method didactics in the areas of qualification, consulting, coaching as well as university and applied research and can refer to extensive skills and experience.

The project is co-financed by the European Union.

More about the project: http://strengthwomen.eu/en/

Author: Christina Göbel (Bildungszentrum Lernen+Technik gGmbH Dresden)