IFUWA Projects Committee takes concerted action on women’s issues at National and International levels. The Committee has with it members representing affiliates from across India. They are committed and interested in carrying out projects in their respective areas of work.

Objectives of the Projects Committee are

• To connect associations of women graduates across India
• To enable UWA’s to take concerted action on women’s issues at National and International level
• Spreading awareness in the public about IFUWA

The projects presently undertaken are

• Prevention of Sexual harassment at the work place.

  An ongoing project, it is being conducted by President of UWA Pune Mrs Neelam Jagdale and the Projects Convenor Dr Ujjwala Shinde.

  An international webinar was conducted recently in collaboration with UWA Egypt.

• Legal literacy for Women

  This project is aimed at initiating Legal literacy clubs in different institutions and colleges. The focus would be on issues related to women and legal rights. The project is led by Ms Purobi Ghosh Mohan.

• A study of the coping strategies adopted by working women who are graduates , during the Covid19 pandemic. Through this study we are hoping to collect and document information about the coping strategies adopted by working women. This study will help us understand the social, emotional, psychological well being of working women who are graduates. The analysis of the study will be shared with the affiliates.
• The team would be engaging in larger conversations with other working women to help them nurture wellness in their lives. 841 responses have been received from working women across India so far, for analyses.

Adoption of Coping strategies adopted during pandemic by working women

As part of the centenary celebrations and due to the sudden outbreak of Corona-19, IFUWA has endeavoured to take up a National project to explore the Adoption of Coping strategies adopted during the crisis by working women who were graduates and beyond.

Working women who are graduates or more have been playing a significant role in the socio-economic development of our country. The working woman has built around her a network of formal and informal support system to help her play different roles at home and at the workplace. This network was rudely disrupted by the unprecedented lockdowns due to which the informal support system was no longer available.

During the pandemic, owing to confinement of the family within the house and working from home, these women was confronted with various challenges.

The intention of this study is to explore how these working women managed the stress. The result of this study could help other women explore possibilities of experimenting with coping strategies for better emotional, psychological and mental well-being.

Title of Project

Adoption of Coping Strategies by Working women who are graduates or more during the Covid-19 lockdown

Objectives

• To assess the coping strategies adopted by working women who are graduates or more in the Covid19 pandemic crisis.
• To observe any association of the coping strategies adopted by working women who are graduates or more during the Covid19 with their socio-demographic data.
• To assess resilient coping in working women who are graduates or more.
• The target group for this study would be all working women who are graduates or more with internet facilities in the age group of 25-60 years.

Design

Cross sectional descriptive study

Coping Strategies

Coping strategies refer to the specific efforts, both behavioural and psychological that Graduate working women are employing to overcome, endure, lessen or lower stressful moments.

To collect data the following tools in the form of Google forms are being used

• Socio Demographic Data
• Brief Cope Strategy scale
• Brief Resilient Coping scale

Findings

Through this small action research, evidence from 841 respondents was collected on coping strategies adopted by graduate working women. As an extension to the findings that indicated approaches to coping being more avoidance coping that is harmful to one’s mental health in the long run, experts designed a year long program to cater to the physical, social, emotional and psychological well-being of graduate working women titled Swayamsiddha - empowering women to be self-sufficient.

This initiative consists of lecture series by facilitators covering vital aspects of self-care, self-development and awareness on critical issues related to women, such as food and nutrition, relaxation and yoga, mental well-being, legal awareness and money matters.