Women’s integration into Finnish professional life through mentoring
For educated immigrant women it is often very difficult to find a job equivalent with their education. This is due to the fact that high-educational sectors contain mainly professional tasks, which require a good knowledge of Finnish, as well as confidence in the employee's ability to perform the required tasks. For educated immigrant women it is often difficult to prove their skills in their own field without referees or networks.
Womento helps to integrate into Finnish society and promotes employment of educated immigrant women (actors) through mentoring by experienced Finnish women (mentors). Face to face interaction offers new views and shared learning for both parts in the mentoring process. Womento’s objective is to support these women and provide them with necessary networks and skills to function in the Finnish working life and to deepen their knowledge and practices of their own professional field.
The core function is voluntarily acting mentor-actor -pairs. A mentor can for example help in CV preparation, the pair can discuss the Finnish working culture or they can practice special Finnish vocabulary relevant to their profession. Every pair works in their individual way but the leading idea is shared profession or educational background.
Womento’s coordinators arrange meetings in groups that consist of about 10 pairs. The aim of these meetings is to coach pairs in their mentoring work and to provide peer support among the group. All the activities are free of charge for the participants.
The target groups are both immigrant and Finnish women and they have shown great interest in the project and its model. At the moment there are over 70 mentoring pairs active in Helsinki area, Turku and Porvoo.
Overall, Womento project and model will affect positively the attitudes towards migrants in Finnish society. Womento improves the society's capacity to absorb foreign-born educated women to become part of the Finnish working and daily life.