A City’s good practice towards the elimination of discrimination

Since 2009 the City of Bern has been supporting a mentoring project led by the Feminist Peace Organisation. The Project aims to improve the access of highly qualified immigrant women to information and networks of the working world. The goal of the project is to connect immigrant and professional women, who are actually their mentors coming from the same branch.

The City supports the Project by searching mentors in the public administration. The City has also presented the Project in different events and the journal for the City’s employees, with the intention to animate more people to become mentors and to focus their attention to the complex situation of qualified migrant women on the Swiss labour market. The Programme is intended for immigrant women only and pairs them with women in the same area of work. Such targeted pairing can significantly improve access of immigrant women to work not only by providing them information about access to employment but also by enabling them to develop new contacts.

City Information
As of December 2010, Bern has a population of 124,381, which makes it the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. In 1983 the historic old town in the centre of Bern became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As of 2011, 24.7 % of the population was made up of foreign nationals. In Bern about 72.8% of the population (between 25 and 64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education.

Bern has been a member of the European Coalition of Cities against Racism since April 2009.

For more information, please visit: www.bern.ch