Women’s Student Training and Empowerment Program (Women’s STEP)
Women’s STEP aims to combat “brain drain” by contributing to gender equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina through career readiness training for 40 female university students, three-month-long internships with prospective employees to 10 participants, and valuable professional development and job-readiness insight for the public.
The Women’s Student Training and Empowerment Program (Women’s STEP), one of the newest programs administered by the American Councils office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is financed by a grant from the United States Department of State and is a free program aimed at educating female students in helping them gain their first work experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Women’s STEP offers participants the opportunity to get acquainted with the labor market in Bosnia and Herzegovina and gain work experience and skills that they will need to be successful in any future job search.
Countering ”brain drain” among women
Brain drain is a problem that Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) continues to face. According to research done by the Union for Sustainable Return and Integration in BiH, between 2013 and 2019 close to 500,000 people have moved out of the country. As trends have shown over the last decade, young people are rapidly moving out of BiH with an idea that in order to succeed in life or have a career, they need to leave their country of origin. Bosnian youth finish their education and struggle to find a job, either because most employers look for people with work experience that recent graduates cannot provide, or because they were not taught the skills necessary to be competitive in the job market.
Universities generally do not have any specialized classes for career skill-building; they do not have career advisers nor do they organize workshops or training outside of the regular curriculum. Secondary and tertiary education often does not equip students with any basic skills when it comes to the job-seeking process. Students graduate without knowing how to behave in a job interview or write a resume or a cover letter.
Furthermore, in BiH, by many still a traditional society, women face an array of challenges when it comes to the workforce. In 2003, the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH passed the Gender Equality Law and in 2006 consequently created the Gender Action Plan for BiH (GAP), which compelled the government to create an action plan. The GAP outlines actions that must be facilitated to gain gender equality in this society which include employment issues. Through the GAP, according to the ILO, women in BiH face considerable limitations in advancing through the labor market, such as traditional understanding of the role of women in the family in society; low levels of education and access to information; men being more favored during recruitment and so forth. The labor market in BiH is, therefore, quite challenging when it comes to young women. According to the Agency for Statistics of BiH, in October 2020 out of the total unemployed in the country, 57% were female.
Following a successful implementation of the STEP program where university students from Banja Luka and Sarajevo participated in career-readiness training and in three-month-long internships in companies of their choice, where many were afterward hired, Women’s STEP acts as its spin-off, providing women with opportunities to secure employment faster.
What does Women’s STEP consist of?
The Women’s STEP program consists of three phases:
a series of courses and workshops designed to equip 40 female university students with the skills necessary to be competitive on the job market, to be held in Banja Luka;
ten selected participants of the training in Banja Luka will be selected for internships with local businesses, institutions, and organizations in Banja Luka or Sarajevo;
within two months of completing the initial training in Banja Luka, each participant will be required to organize peer education programs in order to share their knowledge and experience.
After ten participants successfully complete their internships and peer-to-peer presentations in spring 2022, they will be invited to a closing ceremony that will be held in Sarajevo. This event will provide them with an opportunity to share their experiences. Each participant will receive a certificate of completion that confirms they have three months of work experience.
For more information about Women’s STEP, please contact: +387 60 328 9804, write an email to ba@americancouncils.org, or visit our STEP Facebook page.
Applications for Women’s STEP program are now OPEN. To apply, go to http://ais.americancouncils.org/STEP
Applications are open until November 8, 2021.