We Care Project
Providing access to guidance, training and validation of non-formal and informal learning for migrant women working in care sectors
We Care Project
The Project
WE CARE shall improve and strengthen the Adult education system by offering innovative approaches and contents to provide access to guidance, training and validation of nonformal and informal learning. The project will have a direct impact in the skills improvement of Adult education teachers, counsellors and guidance personnel and in the migrant women, opening for them new skills pathways and job opportunities as care professionals in Europe.
Project Aims
WE CARE project aims to address the described needs and challenges by designing and co-creating new methods and tools addressed to adult education teachers, counsellors and guidance personnel in order to support innovative practices in guidance, training and validation of non-formal and informal learning of migrant women working in care sectors in Europe.
Context
Health care is an important sector in all European countries and traditionally, health and social care workers are predominantly women.
Moreover, the care sector itself is rendered unable to fully benefit from the work of immigrant workers who may want to provide in-home care but are unable to find a legal path to enter the country or obtain employment. Many migrants face the challenge that host countries fail to recognize their training and credentials. Moves towards skilling or upskilling, or indeed skills validation to informal learner women to assist them in becoming long-term care professionals, have only been reported sporadically.
The employment challenges identified by the project partners, and confirmed by the expert group of the European Social Policy Network, highlight the need to address informal/undeclared work of migrant women in care sectors and to open up skills validation and upskilling to informal learners to assist them in becoming care professionals.
Target Group
Migrant women care workers face particular challenges because of the vagaries of immigration laws in various destination countries, which often prevent them from entering the country legally or taking paid employment.
This lack of legal status puts undocumented immigrants working in the care sector in many countries at risk of abuse by unscrupulous employers.
Those who are hired informally often lack the statutory labour rights accorded to them through a contract, including pensions and benefits, and may receive wages that are significantly lower than those paid for equivalent work in the formal health-care system (The role of migrant care workers in aging societies.IOM;2010)
Partners
The We Care project is composed of 8 partners from various countries:
