Coffee Chat - Virtual Get together of Prayaana Women

The session kicked off with an interesting talk on “Work-Life Integration” by Ms. Shalu Ahuja, Working Parenthood Coach and Senior Mentor at Prayaana. She talked about how it is important for everyone, especially women to find time for themselves between balancing work and responsibilities, for their health as well as for their productivity. The new members of the Prayaana Community introduced themselves and shared how excited they were to be a part of an environment where women support, motivate and help each other. The program was hosted by Ms. Deepa Perumal, who taught the new members the “Prayaana Mudra”, the long-standing tradition followed in every meeting. All the women happily came on camera to pose for a Community Photo. It was followed by an introduction to Prayaana and various initiatives by Ms. Binu Anjou – Head of HR Operations. The Team Leads for all the initiatives gave a brief introduction to their respective projects, namely Ms. Sreekala S – Head of C2C Mission, Ms. Tara – Community Manager, Ms. Sarumathi S – COO, Pracol E-Com Platform, Ms. Jisha Haridas – Associate Editor, SheSight E-Magazine, Ms. Deepa Perumal – COO, PEAKS Academy E-Learning Platform and Ms. Rekha Vipin, Head of SthreeSankalp Financial Literacy initiative. The objective of the session was to make the community members aware of the various departments at Prayaana, and how they can contribute towards the activities of Prayaana and be a part of our women empowerment goals. The closing remarks were given by Dr. Chandra Vadhana, CEO of Prayaana, who talked about the plans for scaleup and the vision for Prayaana in 2022. An interesting 1.5-hour session came to an end on a very positive note, with plans for more sessions in the coming months.

Meet the Mentor – Session with Ms. Keziah Thomas on 22 January 2022

Prayaana conducted a Meet the Mentor session for the members of the Community. The session was led by Ms. Keziah Thomas, the Co-founder and Chief Mentor at Prayaana. She introduced the concept of “Mentoring” for women who wish to return to careers after a break and explained how a mentor can help them clarify their goals, identify their strengths, and guide them on getting placements. The session was quite interactive with the Community members raising questions on resume building, interview facing, upskilling, adapting to work culture, balancing home responsibilities with work, and many aspects of the returnship process. Ms. Deepa Perumal, COO of PEAKS Academy also pitched in about the various online courses available in the e-Learning platform which can be helpful for the C2C ladies. The session lasted for 1.5 hours and received good feedback from the participants.

-Deepa Perumal

PEAKS Academy– Organic Food Startup MasterClass by Ms. Deepa Muthukumarasam on 2 Jan 2022

The second episode of the Future Entrepreneur Series was held on 2nd Jan 2022 via Zoom. The highlight of the series was a MasterClass on “How to Start an Organic Food Brand” by Startup Coach Ms. Deepa Muthukumarasamy, Founder of Some More Foods Pvt Ltd. She shared her entrepreneurship journey, how motherhood inspired her to research more on natural foods, prepare her own formulations and eventually turn the idea to a business. She talked about identifying the potential market needs, finding the target audience and how to design the products catering to customer needs. It was an interactive session attended by budding Entrepreneurs, Housewives and Natural / Organic Food Enthusiasts who shared their experiences and discussed their concerns related to the startup. Ms. Deepa also explained about the design thinking process involved in designing the brand logo, marketing ideas, scaleup and export possibilities, and briefly touched upon the manpower and machinery requirements for the startup.

This session is useful for those aspiring to start an organic food brand for part time or full time business.Enrollments are still open!! If you wish to see the recording and/or participate in upcoming sessions, please get in touch with us at 89262 78668.

Deepa Perumal

PRAYAANA towards the Success of ‘ComeBack to Career’ Job Fair

The Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (K-DISC) and Kerala Knowledge Economy Mission (KKEM) collaboratively organized job fairs all over the state of Kerala.

One part of this job fair was a back to career session that was held exclusively for women who need to get back into their careers after a break. There was a three-hour-long training session conducted by the Prayaana group about the importance of women resuming their careers after a break. Prayaana is a career support mission that gives support for women for re-entering their careers or becoming entrepreneurs.

The training was given on why women should work and become financially independent, the benefits of being financially independent and how a woman who is not working is making no contribution to the economy of the country. The women were given examples of success stories of other women. The training session also contained a section where women were provided mental support and taught how to tackle the adversaries they may face while resuming their careers.

These back to career sessions were held on 21 December 2021 in Thiruvananthapuram, 10 January 2022 in Calicut and 16 January 2022 in Ernakulam. The Job fair was widely successful and about 269 candidates secured jobs through this initiative.