Supporting Immigrant Women on Their Path to Employment: CeMeWE’s Mentoring Blueprint and Prototype
The article is written by CeMeWE project manager Andra Marta Babre from Riga Technical University.
Immigrant women across the Central Baltic region often face unique and complex challenges when entering the labor market, ranging from disrupted careers and cultural barriers to language gaps and limited professional networks. The Central Baltic Mentoring for Migrant Women Seeking Employment (CeMeWE) project is solving these challenges.
With support from the European Regional Development Fund and within the framework of the Central Baltic Programme 2021–2027, CeMeWE is building sustainable mentoring models that empower immigrant women, including recent arrivals such as Ukrainian refugees, to improve their employability and integrate into the workforce.
A Mentorship Program Rooted in Co-Creation
The project, led by Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Finland) and joined by Riga Technical University (Latvia), Zemgale Planning Region (Latvia), the Institute of Baltic Studies (Estonia), and Region Uppsala, has produced two key resources:
- The Mentorship Program Prototype
- The Mentoring Service Blueprint
Together, these documents provide a comprehensive roadmap for designing, implementing, and sustaining mentoring programs specifically tailored to the needs of immigrant women.
What Makes the CeMeWE Approach Unique?
CeMeWE’s model is based on joint learning, iterative design, and co-creation. It draws from a comparative analysis of over 30 mentorship programs across Europe, integrating best practices such as:
- Structured peer and one-on-one mentoring
- Micro-learning content tailored to local labor markets
- Multi-phase support depending on readiness to work
The program design is flexible and scalable, offering different levels of support – light support, retraining, and intensive support – depending on each woman’s background, language skills, and distance from the labor market.
How the Mentoring Journey Works
The CeMeWE mentoring process follows four key phases:
- Screen – Assessing the needs and goals of participants.
- Orientate – Providing information, tools, and training to prepare participants.
- Equip – Offering mentors hands-on training and mentees practical resources for employment.
- Match – Pairing mentees with mentors, offering courses or capacity building possibilities.
This process can also include two additional steps that are
- pre-phase
- post-phase
These steps include information on how to “find” the participants in the pre-step phase and in the post-step phase to create continuity of the activities and a sense of community.
Mentoring is more than career advice, it is also about social support, confidence-building, and overcoming isolation. The role of mentors extends from adviser and coach to advocate, facilitator, and motivator.
A Blueprint for Long-Term Impact
The Service Blueprint serves as a practical guide for implementing the mentorship program across different sectors – NGOs, employment offices, educational institutions, and municipalities. It includes:
- Tools for recruiting and training mentors
- Guidance on group and one-on-one mentoring models
- Best practices for supporting women with varying needs and barriers
- Monitoring and evaluation strategies
Importantly, both documents aim to ensure sustainability beyond the project lifetime by equipping service providers with adaptable methods and a clear structure.
What’s Next?
CeMeWE aims to engage over 500 immigrant women and gather 839 participations in cross-border activities by the end of the project in March 2026. The goal is not just employment – but empowerment.
By strengthening mentoring ecosystems in Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden, the project is contributing to more inclusive, resilient labor markets and fostering real opportunities for women to thrive.
This article was supported as part of project – Central Baltic Mentoring for Migrant Women seeking Employment – CeMeWE (CB0100070), as Interreg Central Baltic Programme 2021-2027 project co-funded by the European Union. This presentation reflects the views of the author. The managing authority of the programme is not liable for how this information may be used.
