The future belongs to heroines!

Following last year’s successful #futuremum series of programmes, the two organisations will continue their cooperation in 2019, planning several professional development days, entrepreneurship workshops, meetups supporting women’s return to the labour market after maternity leave and #YouthEmpowered trainings to promote equal opportunities for women and help them become heroines.

Fresh data from the Central Statistics Office show that only 4% of Hungarian employees work part-time. This figure remains well below the European Union average of 19%, not to mention the almost 50% registered in the Netherlands. Yet, flexible working hours are a great help for parents of young children who want to return to the labour market.

In Hungary, the child care support system allows parents to stay at home with their child for three years. During this period, mothers have fewer opportunities for adult interaction, community building, participation in professional trainings and to follow the latest trends and changes.

In order to address these problems, Coca‑Cola Hungary and Loffice Coworkid teamed up in 2018 to organise professional and non-formal education events and trainings, offering modern training programmes and the opportunity to make contacts as well as professional childcare. To this end, Coca‑Cola Hungary decided to expand the target group of its #YouthEmpowered program, launched in 2016 with the aim to reduce youth unemployment and help young people find a job, and to team up with the Coworkid Foundation to include young mothers and parents raising young children.

Both organisations are looking for ways to effectively support parents raising their children and to exploit their labour market potential. They would like to help mothers with young children break free of their isolation at home and boost their confidence in order to support their return to the labour market. Recognising that this requires self-knowledge trainings, knowledge of the current characteristics of the labour market and acquisition of entrepreneurial skills, last year they organised an ‘interactive day’ and an ‘entrepreneurial training’ with great success, and this year they will continue their cooperation along the following directions:

• Professional development events, meetups and campaigns encouraging young mothers to familiarise themselves with others’ success stories, learn from others’ failures, gain new knowledge and receive fresh momentum that could give their life, career and future a new direction.

• Events specifically tailored to parents of young children, encouraging them to return to the labour market and become entrepreneurs, and offering them the chance to acquire marketable and practice-oriented knowledge with help from professional mentors, trainers and experts.

• Motivational events, where leading practices and good examples as well as new technologies and modern forms of work are presented.

• Social sensitisation campaigns in the social media, raising awareness of the labour market potential held by parents of young children and encouraging mothers to enter the labour market through the example of influencers, successful female entrepreneurs.

About Coworkid: Loffice has been the first in Hungary to combine coworking office space with childcare. The Coworkid project responds to the challenges set by the changes in labour market conditions and the technological development. Coworkid is a pioneering model in Hungary, which helps improve job opportunities for parents of young children with child-friendly working days and professional development programmes.

About Coca‑Cola Hungary’s #YouthEmpowered program: Launched in 2017, this program offers one-day retraining opportunities free of charge to young people aged 18-30 years who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). The main goal of the program is to provide training focusing on competences needed to succeed on the labour market to about 8,000 people by 2020 and to develop the network and relationship system of labour market participants.