Womento was launched for educated women who have immigrated to Finland. The objective is to support and provide them with necessary networks and skills for Finnish working life and to deepen the knowledge and practices of their own professional field.

For educated immigrant women it is difficult to find a job equivalent with their education. This is due to the fact that high-educational sectors contain professional tasks which require good knowledge of Finnish, as well as confidence in the employee's ability to perform required tasks. Immigrant educated women can find it difficult to prove their skills in their own field without referees or networks.

Womento aims to strengthen both professional and social networking among immigrant and Finnish women.  Womento improves society's capacity to absorb foreign-born educated women to become part of Finnish working and daily life, and supports the inclusion of immigrant women in general.

The core function is voluntarily acting mentor-actor -pairs. Womento officers find a mentor for an actor (immigrant woman).  The pair discusses Finnish working culture or practices Finnish vocabulary related to their professional field, or work on writing applications and CVs. Each pair works in an individual way.

Over 6-8 months, Womento arranges three meetings in groups that consist of 5 to 8 pairs. Pairs are coached through mentoring and provided peer support. All activities are free of charge. Womento supports participants also by providing individual counseling if needed, and by activities to strengthen working skills.

The aim is to have a functional mentoring model, to provide mentoring widely in Finland for immigrant women, to have a wide range of Finnish professional women advocating for the mentoring, to provide peer support and different types of trainings for both mentors and actors, and finally to sustain the mentoring process in Finnish NGO and public sector structures. Around 200 immigrant women and Finnish mentors will have finalized the process by 2014.

Target groups both immigrant and Finnish women have shown great interest in the Womento mentoring model, and are actively involved in developing the process.

In Womento, the mentoring process of each pair (mentor and actor) is guided, followed and documented carefully. Each mentor pair makes their own commitment including the aims for their mentoring. In various cities the amount of mentoring pairs are followed and reported. During the project the Womento mentoring model is developed, analyzed and described in details for further and wider use.

The direct beneficiaries are the educated immigrant women taking part in the mentoring process. The Finnish mentors taking part in the process also benefit from the project by enhancing their knowledge and skills of different working cultures in different countries/cultures.

This project is funded by the Finnish Slot Machine Association for years 2012-2014. The Finnish Cultural Foundation funds the activities implemented in the city of Turku during 2012 and a new funding application has been sent to the Finnish Cultural Foundation for further funding for the year 2013.

These projects have 4 employees (2 project planners, 1 project coordinator and 1 project manager).