Training process for foreign women.

Abstract

This article analyses some strategies for the training process of foreign women. Several establishments must cooperate in this process (universities, unions, industrial associations, local councils) not only to support job seeking initiatives but also to help these women move up towards more qualified work. The projects aimed at this are sporadic and marginal, lacking in finances because they are entirely focussed on job seeking schemes, and do not aim at helping women overcome their initial disadvantage. The result is not a qualifying training experience but merely a basic duty. Foreign women do not aspire just to dignified work but above all they wish to reach social recognition in order to benefit from all citizen rights yet maintain their personal identity through and through. We find basic fault already in the fact that the receiving country does not take into consideration the education of these women acquired in their countries. Actually, we do not find attempt to check, evaluate and improve the women’s starting qualifications. In the Italian job market, it is still impossible to ratify the qualifications of each new foreign woman. It is therefore necessary to act in many different ways in order to take care of the cultural needs of each ethnic group, so that these women could have options between different ways of life in order to get a positive introduction into the “new” country. It is necessary to create careful flexible courses for each need. Since women immigrants come from different nations, have different levels of instruction, have had different jobs, homes and relations with justice, our model of professional training must be reorganised in order to meet the real needs of these women. To this end, the education and re-training strategies must follow a careful analysis of the women’s living and working conditions, not only in consideration of their bureaucratic needs, but above all in consideration of the addressee’s real needs and expectations.