Supporting the networking of muslim women in Germany
Background of the Aktionsbündnis muslimischer Frauen
The non-profit organization Aktionsbündnis Muslimischer Frauen e.V. (AmF) actively promotes the interests and needs of Muslim women in German society. It is the largest non-associational and non-partisan Muslim women’s organization. It is also very well networked with other organizations to strengthen social participation and women’s rights.
The AmF is driven by the conviction that a pluralistic society with encounters at eye level is a benefit for all people. The AmF is equally active on a political and interpersonal level.
In its numerous activities, the alliance always has only one goal: the equality of Muslim women in their professional and private lives.
Muslim women today achieve higher educational and professional qualifications. They are teachers, lawyers and self-employed. They also take part in intercultural dialog and are active in a variety of socio-political activities. Nevertheless, they are largely “unknown entities” in political discourse.
The AmF counteracts this with statements on current political issues, targeted political education work and the creation of spaces for empowerment and networking. A good example of this is the “Muslim Women for More Participation” project funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
Aim of the project
The aim of this project is to reduce entry barriers to the labor market for women from visible minorities. Name, appearance or (presumed) religion can become a hurdle in the labor market – even with good qualifications. In order to counteract this, it is not only information about career opportunities that is crucial, but also the effective networking of the right members within the large network.
Every job seeker knows how important good contacts can be for professional success.
However, easy access to a well-structured and efficient database is essential for effective networking. In the search for a suitable solution, dmc-smartsystems and the AmF met in person for the first time and launched their joint project!
Previously, the hard-working AmF employees had exchanged this important profile information with each other via manually synchronized Excel spreadsheets. This enabled them to find the right partner for a new request for help in the existing network. Although this was feasible in such a large network, it involved an enormous administrative effort and the limitations of Excel made it even more difficult to use.
The Start
One of the tasks of the funded project was therefore to replace the outdated Excel system with an intelligent database. To this end, dmc-smartsystems was to create a web application with a database connection. In addition to this, there was also a desire for an easy-to-use interface and a sophisticated user concept for the various members. Ultimately, all of this was to enable them to manage their own profiles themselves.
At the start of the project, however, there was not much more than this vague idea of what this solution should look like in concrete terms. There were no technical specifications or documentation on the user concept – just a desire for improvement and this one guiding idea.
For this reason, we decided to work very closely with AmF in an agile project. Gradually, the requirements were to be clearly defined and the AmF also had the freedom to continuously review its own requirements and modify them if necessary.
This approach proved to be absolutely right, as it turned the initial sparkling idea – piece by piece – into a customized solution in the form of a powerful Django application.
The collaboration with AmF went exceptionally well! Thanks to their communicative streak and constant availability for queries from our developers, a positive and productive project atmosphere prevailed right from the start.
The Solution
Thanks to this outstanding teamwork, it is therefore not surprising that the project was a complete success in the end. With this customized solution, the AmF is now able to find experts quickly and easily via a browser. A skills search now intuitively guides employees directly to their destination using a newly developed keyword search system. Intelligent cross-references also simplify menu navigation and the operation of the web application itself.
The most important feature, however, is that experts can now manage their own data records and initiate updates to the database themselves. Continuous synchronization through the Excel tables is no longer necessary – a considerable administrative relief for the AmF staff.
We are delighted to have made a small contribution to the success of the AmF and wish them continued success in their activities!
