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CARDET has successfully implemented a series of trainings in March 2019 under the project SMART Volunteering for Female Migrants involving people from NGOs, social workers, volunteers and the business sector.

The training awareness of SMART Volunteering had as an aim to diversify and increase flexibility of voluntary and business sectors where third country migrant women seek to participate, exercise their social skills or seek employment.

The partnership of SMART Volunteering developed the learner materials through the outcomes that derived from the Needs Analysis that took place at the beginning of the project.

The content of the training material for the NGOs, volunteers and social workers involved among others the importance of SMART Volunteering for the smooth integration of third-country female migrants, some practical tools and activities that can be used to better understand the transferable strengths of the female migrants and to build the soft skills they need to achieve full integration in educational and social activities, and cultural life and some tools to help them find the SMART Volunteering opportunities.

For the business sector, the learning material included some facts and figures regarding female migrants and tackling stereotypes and myths so as to encourage businesses to adopt a more tolerant mind-set towards female migrants and support them in their integration to society while at the same time some information for the companies to be involved in volunteering projects through Corporate Social Responsibility in order to foster the active participation of third-country female migrants in local community.

All participants enjoyed their training pathway and they were eager to contribute and share their experiences, ideas and thoughts with one another at all times. The most important outcome that derived from those training sessions in both groups was the motivation and willingness of the participants to find ways for the integration and social inclusion of the female migrants in the local community.

Overall, the trainings reported to be useful by both groups and participants expressed their interest to further contribute and be active in future relevant activities of the SMART Volunteering project and similar initiatives.

The training material of SMART Volunteering are now available online in the e-Learning platform that CARDET has developed.