At the end of October, the Dones Mentores team completed the pilot project of social mentoring with a gender perspective, within the framework of the “Dones Competents” Programme at Santa Perpetua de Mogoda (Barcelona).
Dones Competents is a programmd to support women from the Municipality of Santa Perpetua de Mogoda who are in the process of looking for a job, improving their employability and making professional decisions.
This is a comprehensive programme for women that this year, in its thirteenth edition, decided to include social mentoring with a gender perspective as a novelty through the method and expertise of Dones Mentores.
It has been a pilot test in which Dones Mentores has carried out a process of technical and training support for the professionals of the programme and monitoring of actions as well as training for participating women with a methodological adaptation that has meant a great challenge and at the same time a set of learnings for all parties.
The incorporation of the gender perspective in the workplace means recognizing the inequalities that lead women to spaces of imbalance, discrimination and lack of opportunities. For Dones Mentores, it is vitally important to incorporate this perspective into the processes of socio-labour insertion since it allows women’s identity to be re-signified and to identify and recognize the social elements that intersect and cross their lives.
The participants in the pilot were 6 women trained as mentors, and 4 women mentees; altogether, 4 mentorships were built. The mentors were able to share experiences, knowledge and tools from their personal journeys, emphasizing the support for the mentee not only in the exchange of experiences but also in the emotional support and promotion of women’s agency sustained by recognizing their personal resources and validating their skills.
This institutional initiative to promote women’s autonomy, equal opportunities and social and labour inclusion aligns our social mentoring model with a gender perspective, which seeks to promote support between women as a tool for personal transformation and community action and impact in addressing situations of vulnerability and sexist violence.
