Empowering women in rural areas is not only about creating jobs. As our recent SERIGO webinar on Women’s pathways to work and empowerment in rural Europe made clear, it is first and foremost about building confidence, shifting mindsets, strengthening community ties and accessing the right support.
Bringing together grassroots practitioners and policy voices, the discussion explored how local and transnational initiatives can boost women’s agency, reduce isolation and thereby open pathways to economic participation, especially for those facing multiple barriers such as migrant and refugees.
Community first: empowerment and networking before employment
Our first panel highlighted the role of self-organisation and collective action as foundations for integration and empowerment.
Working in Carinthia, a very rural region of South Austria, Diakonie de la Tour supports migrant and refugee women through literacy modules combined with strong peer learning and community-building. Women from different backgrounds come together to learn and build connections to their local environment and communities, sometimes through unexpected tools such as an intercultural garden co-led by association REBOLA. As our speakers, Marcel Leuschner and Melanie Sucher stressed, many structural barriers remain including language, legal insecurity, long asylum procedures, loneliness and lack of access to information. Their key message was clear: “It is not a lack of willingness or ability, but a lack of support.” This initiative is part of the SERIGO pilots.
Sarah Khoudja then shared the experience of CiRCE, a women-led collective created in the remote Italian territory of Cilento in 2022. What began with three women struggling to find information to set up their business has grown into a registered association bringing together over 30 women of different ages and backgrounds and a network of +200 women (Mondo CiRCE).
CiRCE operates as a horizontal, democratic collective, offering activities ranging from crafts and reading groups to social events and discussions on domestic violence. At its core is a simple idea: women’s voices matter and collective spaces can reveal hidden creativity and potential. Nevertheless, the collective faces challenges that are all too familiar to rural areas, such as poor infrastructure, isolation, resistance to change and very limited institutional support.
Find out more about CiRCE here.
Entrepreneurship as a tool for empowerment
Georgia Alexandrou from KMOP presented the WISER programme, which supports migrant women through social entrepreneurship training, individual and group consultations, and the creation of local Communities of Practice. More than 150 women benefited from training in language skills, social entrepreneurship, project management, and digital competencies, while over 100 also received tailored support. The Communities of Practice connected participants with experts and institutions, fostering learning and collaboration.
Despite the challenges, such as language barriers, legal and administrative hurdles, care responsibilities, limited access to technology, fatigue, and discrimination, the programme successfully adapted through flexible learning methods, hybrid delivery, and strong emotional support to sustain women’s engagement. A key lesson learned is that when working with migrant women, programmes must fully consider their socio-economic context and remain flexible and responsive to their needs, as participants often face multiple and intersecting challenges beyond the learning environment.
Why gender equality matters for rural futures?
Closing the discussion, Blanca Casares, AEIDL, reflected on the work done in the GRASS Ceiling EU project and brought a strong policy perspective. She highlighted that EU regions with higher gender equality are also the most innovative and attractive, often gaining population while others decline. Her conclusion resonated across the webinar: when women are empowered to participate fully -not only in economic life but also in policymaking- entire communities become more resilient and policies better reflect real needs.
What they need now is not more proof of women’s motivation but sustained funding, supportive and inclusive policies as well as infrastructure that allow these initiatives to thrive on the long-term.
Did you miss the webinar? Watch here the recording and stay tuned for our next events!