The BasicEDU project addresses one of the core issues on the EU agenda: the integration of disadvantaged women into the labour market. It focuses particularly on unemployed young women in rural areas, who face multiple barriers due to low educational attainment, limited vocational skills and restrictive social roles. Many of these women carry the main responsibility for household chores and caregiving, while at the same time lacking access to meaningful employment opportunities. Existing labour market integration programmes often follow a one-size-fits-all approach and do not sufficiently reflect the diversity of disadvantaged backgrounds. BasicEDU was therefore designed to fill this gap, by targeting the specific needs of women in rural and disadvantaged contexts and by supporting them in identifying realistic educational and professional pathways that match labour market needs.

The overall objective of BasicEDU was to enable more effective labour market integration of disadvantaged women at local, regional, national and EU levels. To achieve this, the project aimed to empower women with disadvantaged backgrounds, enhance their professional opportunities and facilitate their access to employment. A central element was the creation of Mentoring and Empowerment relationships between women from the wider society and disadvantaged women, helping to build confidence, networks and role models. The project also sought to improve skills assessment through a tailor-made methodology, so that women’s existing competences could be recognised and further developed. Beyond immediate empowerment, BasicEDU pursued a long-term goal of increasing the active social participation of poor rural women and generating evidence from impact evaluation that could be taken up in policy processes in the partner countries.