Fairmatching

We've started 2015, in the midst of the refugee tide. Feeling that the WELCOME moment here in Austria will not last. So we founded fairMATCHING to support newcomers finding a job, supposing that work could serve in this situation as an integration engine. Always having in mind, that work also can complicate the arrival when refugees are mobbed and not treated well. Our mission was clear, from the beginning: 1) We work on eye level. 2) We focus on competences & business partnerships (thinking in both directions to achieve a fair matching). And 3) we look beyond the work horizon and try to co-shape the discourse of integration. One of our early learnings were that the situation of women requires a special approach. Because they have to deal with multiple challenges – like child-care, organisation of family life, projections and restrictions of a men dominated culture. So we started we ENCOURAGEERS – working with female role models in this field in an international context. Strengthened by the experiences in the FIER project our new benchmark was participation – which also meant that we had to broaden our perspective even more – working with the refugees – not for the refugees. On this background we founded our matchBOX – with the tagline “Work and …?” pointing at the gap between EMPLOYMENT and ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP. With this in mind, we have never thought of job placement as an isolated goal, but have always looked at the bigger picture and how that work feels to individuals; what happens through work; whether it uplifts or holds down; whether it isolates; whether it cements experiences or opens up new spaces of possibility; whether it locks people into a status quo or sees the potential that lies fallow and develops it. This is fairMATCHING. An ongoing process of finding the right way to deal with the challenges newcomers to this country are facing.