WISE Project – First Steering Committee Meeting
19/11/2025
The first Steering Committee meeting of the WISE project took place online on 18 November, bringing together all project partners – with EARLALL attending in its role as Communication Leader – to review progress, discuss reporting requirements, and plan the upcoming stages of work. The meeting provided an important opportunity to align activities, share updates, and ensure smooth implementation across all work packages.
Programme Updates and Ongoing Activities
Partners presented updates on programme activities, showing good progress across several key areas:
- Baseline assessments have been carried out, including key informant interviews, desk research, and co-design meetings with stakeholders and community leaders.
- Labour market assessments are ongoing to better understand opportunities for Ukrainian refugee women in partner countries.
- Outreach activities continue, aiming to reach and engage the target population effectively.
- Job readiness activities have begun in the Holistic Support Centres.
- Mental health support is being provided to users, and planning for group therapy sessions is underway.
- Work has also started on the integration of the AI tool with employment support services.
Overall, these efforts support the project’s wider goal of reducing unemployment and improving the socio-economic inclusion of Ukrainian refugee women.
Reporting and Pending Deliverables
The meeting included a review of reporting procedures and the deliverables due by the end of November. Partners briefly presented the status of each pending output, including:
- The Draft Toolkit for the Holistic Support Centre model.
- The Roll-out Plan for pilot implementation.
- A report on staff capacity strengthening.
- The Labour Market Assessment for Italy and Bulgaria.
- The contextualisation and co-branding report for the AI skills assessment tool.
- A report on staff training on the AI tool.
Most deliverables are in the final stages of preparation and will be submitted on time.
Staff Training and Capacity Building
Partners also discussed the completed and upcoming staff trainings.
Recent activities included:
- Staff capacity strengthening sessions for Fondazione International Rescue Committee Italia ETS (IRC) and Animus Association Foundation (AAF) staff.
- Training on the AI Skills Assessment Tool in Milan and Sofia.
- Sessions on the Women Rise toolkit.
Future trainings will address:
- Country-specific employment regulations, such as tax systems, contract types, and regulated professions.
- A training on human trafficking and labour exploitation, scheduled for November 2025.
Next Meetings and Exchange Visit
The next Steering Committee and coordination meetings will continue regularly. The partners also confirmed that the next in-person meeting will take place in Rome on 16 January.
In addition, a mutual exchange visit is planned for 14 January, with the agenda currently being drafted.
The WISE – Supporting Ukrainian (UA) Refugee Women’s Socio-Economic Integration and Wellbeing project proposes a social innovation model which integrates mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) with employment services enabled by technology driven solutions to create a holistic support system.
WISE aims to improve the socio-economic inclusion and wellbeing of employable refugee women from UA in Italy (IT) and Bulgaria (BG), by piloting and scaling-up Holistic Support Centres (HSCs) with a trauma-informed and gender-sensitive approach that build on the Women and Girls Safe Space (WGSS) methodology and complement it with employment and social support services.
