Empower 20 unemployed Spanish women

At the beginning of 2014 The Guardian published an article called “Spain's jobless women become the boss to beat the recession”. This article started with the shocking statement: “When it comes to finding a job in Europe, not all citizens are born equal. If you are Spanish you have a one in four chance of being unemployed, rising to one in two if you are young. And if you are a young woman in Spain? The odds of finding yourself among the ranks of the unemployed are even higher, at 54.7%.” 

Gina is part of the women mentioned in this article. After graduating in business administration she has been unable to find a job for almost one year. She even tried to access administrative assistant positions (she holds a vocational training grade as secretary/assistant) but she was rejected because of being "too qualified". When she came to our Association, she had a very little self-esteem but she wanted to create her own job in something she was really passionate: refurbishment and interior design. After half a year of training, mentoring and business advice she finally started her activity at the end of 2014. Now, almost one year later, we are proud to say that her company's turnover is constantly growing and that her list of clients is getting longer and longer.

Through our programs for unemployed Spanish women we are trying to tap the potential of women like Gina by first helping these women to boost their self-confidence and then working intensively with them on transforming their business ideas into professional business plans and supporting them until real business creation. As this requires an important time investment for our experts, business advisors and mentors we need your support. Do you want to be behind such successful entrepreneurs as Gina? So please don't miss the opportunity of helping these women to start a new life; a life in which these women's talents, motivation and commitment are appreciated and tapped. We need your support NOW in order to start the program. Let us tell more positive stories about successful women entrepreneurs!

Links:

• Gina's work

As Association providing support to women's economic empowerment in Spain, some years ago we started noticing the effects of the economic crisis in the country. Unemployment was increasing rapidly and women were the most affected, with higher percentages of unemployment than men and much more difficulties in reentering the labor market once out of it. This means lots of talented and skilled women without a chance, falling into social and economic marginalization. An example of this is the case of Paloma who, despite having a bachelor's degree in translation, five years of professional experience and speaking three languages, lost her job and couldn’t find another one for two years. She sent out dozens of applications even as administrative assistant or receptionist but had no luck.

We wanted to change this situation. We wanted to help. That's how we started implementing programs to support unemployed women in becoming entrepreneurs and tap all this wasted potential. We helped them in transforming their business ideas into professional business plans and, if viable, supported them until real business creation. Several of them are now happy and well performing business owners which are furthermore in the position to help other women.

But we do not have funds to provide this support to each woman who wants to enroll in this program which means an accurate long term support and individual mentoring for each participant. And the waiting list is not short. That's why we are asking for YOUR support. We already have one donation from Victor about which we are especially proud as we like to see how men engage with the cause. But we still need more people committed to help these women. 

Both the women as beneficiaries and we as Association providing the service are ready to start the program. Please help us to put a smile in these women’s faces.

Links:

• AFAEMME's website
• AFAEMME's Facebook Page
• AFAEMME's Twitter Account