How We Bring Migrant Mothers Back to Their Professions

Mission

We bring women back to their professions after the job market wrote them off for moving abroad and having children.

Vision: we want every mother who moves to a new country to be able to work in her profession.

The problem: experts nobody sees

A migrant mother faces a double break: time out for childcare and a move to a new country. Each one weakens a CV. Together they make an experienced professional look like a beginner.

• No local track record. Employers ask for local experience and references, which a newcomer cannot have yet.

• Lost confidence. Many stop applying for jobs that match their skills. In our survey, 44% named low confidence as a barrier, although 65% rate their own skills 4 or 5 out of 5.

• Downward drift. They accept low-skilled or informal work, and employers stop seeing their qualifications.

• Mismatched support. Existing programmes offer courses, language and job boards, but rarely the first real project that proves competence to an employer.

At the same time, companies report staff shortages and lack the time to take a risk on an unfamiliar candidate. Everyone loses: women lose income and status, companies lose talent, and the state loses tax and pays for inactivity.

Evidence

The data shows a large, qualified group held back by barriers that a first real project can remove.

Two conclusions follow. Language and a local track record hold women back, not skills. And women who ran their own business find work fastest, which supports an entrepreneurship track next to employment.

Our own survey says the same. 100 mothers answered it in less than a day. 53% are out of work, 71% have been out for 2 years or more, and 57% ask for paid projects from companies. Read the case study →

Open question: comparable data on Belarusian mothers in Poland is scarce. The pilot will collect it.

Policy context

mom2mom delivers on goals that EU and Polish policy already set but lack practical tools to reach for this group.

The mom2mom model

mom2mom works like a talent agency for migrant mothers: it prepares experts, presents them, and places them on paid projects with women founders and their companies.

1. 1

   Recruit through NGOs, diaspora groups and partners such as language schools.

2. 2

   Prepare: a skills diagnosis, a confidence track, professional Polish and a profile in four languages.

3. 3

   Promote: each expert gets a curated portfolio, a public profile and media visibility. Entry to the showcase is earned, which keeps quality high. Preparation is open to every mother.

4. 4

   Match experts with founders and companies for 4–8 week paid projects, remote or part-time.

5. 5

   Outcome: employment, regular freelance income or a business of her own, with a reference and a case study.

Technology: a Telegram bot for experts, a web workspace for companies, and AI that extracts skills from CVs, translates profiles and proposes the top candidates for each task. A coordinator confirms every match.

Value for each stakeholder

Every side gains, which is why the model can sustain itself beyond grants.

Funding and sustainability

Grants pay for preparing and supporting the women. Companies pay for the work. The two streams fund different costs, so nothing is financed twice.

Target revenue mix: about 70% grants and 30% companies in year one, an even split in year two, and about 30% grants and 70% companies from year three. Grants then fund expansion to new countries and groups rather than core operations.

Legal structure: a foundation (fundacja) with business activity in its statute receives grants and runs the programme for women. A limited company (sp. z o.o.) will follow when the platform scales and takes investment. For the first large grant, mom2mom will apply as a partner of an established NGO while building its own track record.

Pilot plan and impact metrics

The pilot runs six months in Poland with two cohorts of 15 mom-experts: mothers who moved to a new country and are pregnant or have a youngest child under 8. In our survey, 78 mothers were ready or interested, for 30 places. The pilot is the proof point for other Member States.

Cohort 2 starts only if cohort 1's projects close, get paid and earn good ratings from both experts and companies.

Budget: the main cost lines are coordination, mentors and trainers, childcare during sessions, the platform, outreach and an independent evaluation. The figures will be set with delivery partners for each funding call.

Scaling globally

The pilot proves the model in one country. The platform is designed from day one for many.

• Poland: the pilot, with mothers from Belarus, Ukraine and other countries.

• Central and Western Europe: partnerships in Member States with large migrant communities, funded through ESF+ and AMIF and one shared evaluation framework.

• Global: any country with migrant mothers and women founders, including the UK, the US and Canada, with local partners and one platform.

The network grows itself: experts who succeed become founders, and founders hire the next experts. That is the meaning of mom2mom.

Policy recommendations

Five changes would let models like mom2mom reach far more women at lower public cost. Our policy paper sets out who should act and by when. Read the policy paper →

1. 1

   Name migrant mothers as a priority group in labour-market and integration calls (ESF+, AMIF, Razem Możemy Więcej), not only “foreigners” or “parents” separately. They face both barriers at once.

2. 2

   Fund the support around a first paid project, not another course. Public money pays for mentoring, childcare and coordination. The company pays for the work, so nothing is funded twice.

3. 3

   Fund childcare as a standard cost during training and project work, as some regional calls already do.

4. 4

   Count what we fund. Report the employment rate of migrant mothers as its own figure, by country of origin.

5. 5

   Tie pay transparency to inclusive hiring. As Poland transposes Directive (EU) 2023/970, let structured return-to-work and inclusive hiring programmes count as remedial measures.

Also for employers: make KFS and PUP support easy to claim when hiring returning parents, including those born abroad, with simple forms and intermediaries who can apply on their behalf.