WAVE (Women After Visiting Each other)

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WAVE (Women After Visiting Each other)

Tehran, IranAfghanistan
Organization type: 
nonprofit/ngo/citizen sector
Project Stage:
Idea
Budget: 
$1,000 - $10,000
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

In many middle east countries, the number of women entering the higher education institutions are increasing, but most of them do not enter any workplace.
Wave (women after visiting each other) is a social network for women to share their experiences about workplaces and employment.

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

What if women could exchange their experiences about the workplace and work conditions in a virtual space?
About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

In Iran, Afghanistan and many middle east countries, the number of women entering the higher education institutions are increasing, but unfortunately most of them do not enter any workplace. According to many research have been done on the reasons of such a phenomenon, it has been found that many women and/or their families do not trust to workplaces because of some problems might happening for them. But how to take back this trust to them?

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

There is a term in "knowledge management" called "local knowledge". Studies show that this kind of knowledge has a higher impact on local communities and solve their problems in a more efficient way. So our solution is based on the local knowledge of women themselves, especially those who are working, to take back the trust and confident to other women to work or to solve their problems in workplace. In order to have a space to exchange women experiences, we would establish a social networking service for them to communicate. The network is called "WAVE (Women After Visiting Each other)", a virtual place for women to express their experiences and problems due to employment and working and to know about other women comments and solutions.
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

Just imagine a woman who has a problem in her workplace, like a "Unequal Payment" or even a "Sexual Harassment", so she can complain about her problem in WAVE, definitely there are some other women with the same problem and also with local solutions -legally pursue or a negotiation- that could be shared. Another example, might be about a lighter problem like "Lack of Family Support" or "Work-life Unbalance" which could be solved by other women solutions that live in the same culture.

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

The Impact of WAVE is not only on working women lives and solving their common problems in workplace by local solutions, but also it could be a warning for the girls who want to choose their workplace, and an awareness as well, for the ones who always have been thinking that workplace problems are unavoidable and unsolvable for women and there would be no trust to them. Definitely talking to successful women who have fought against problems and approved themselves in workplaces are an encouragement for other women. Any how, by discussion, women friendly workplaces and discriminator ones would be manifested, so it could be an alert for many managers and company owners too.
Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

For financial sustainability i do not rely on membership fee. I prefer to have a free virtual space for discussion, cause it is not fair to expect women that do not work to pay, and also it is not rational to expect working women to pay for expressing their problems or solutions. So the best resource could be advertising related businesses like lawyers, family consultant and so on. The project needs little budget especially for itself ads.

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

I have not find any similar solution especially in Changemakers.com. Most of the solutions for women employment problems was concentrated on a single dimension. But Wave is multidimensional and including any problem women faced in workplaces and is based on local knowledge sharing. Although the first language for WAVE is Farsi and it could be usable for Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, but ARABIC could be added, to make it useful for Arab nations in MENA, cause the problem is the same in the region and problems faced by women in workplaces could be just solved in a local context.
Team

Founding Story

Once I was talking to my spouse (who is the other member of the team) about the problems women faced in workplaces, and especially my friends' problems. I told to my spouse about the simple solutions I had given to them, based on my experiences. My husband suggest me to establish a blog or a website to write up my experiences. After some discussions we came to this conclusion that establishing an internet forum could be better, cause they are so many women with better solutions which could be shared.