In 2004, WAV launched the women and employment project based on the principle of equal employment rights. Our goal is to emphasize the right for every woman to reach her full potential free from prejudice, in every aspect of her life including employment.
WAV conducted three innovative researches that would examine the obstacles that are preventing women from joining the work force. The project's coordinators are building on the two studies that were conducted on the issues of employment. The first study focused on the general obstacles facing women in the work force, which revealed that a startling 40% of educated Palestinian women are unemployed. The second study focused specifically on educated Palestinian women who hold various degrees, yet continue to struggle to find work. In addition, the study revealed that there are a growing number of women that hold degrees, however are working in jobs outside their area of expertise.
The study also revealed prevalent public attitudes towards women's participation in the work place and the obstacles faced by unemployed women that hold advanced degrees. WAV is targeting the ministries and governmental institutions, businesses, and women groups in order to address the issues faced by Palestinian women in Israel when seeking employment. In order to overcome the obstacles, through this project, WAV will advocate within the respective ministries and other governmental and non-governmental institutions to insure the required services are available for women so that they may pursue their careers and to establish democracy at the work place.
WAV took this opportunity to create a forum for these unemployed, academically qualified women to serve as an information source for WAV's research and as a network. WAV hopes the women can pool their academic skills to help with the research and advocacy that WAV hopes to carry out in regards to the hardships these women face. Also, the forum will act as a type of recruitment agency in which businesses, municipality personnel, and members of the forum will be able to contact each other in regards to employment opportunities.. Moreover, the mere existence of the forum has provided support and unlimited encouragement for these women when searching for employment in their field.
www.wavojobs.com
WAV launched the first website for job searching dedicated to unemployed academic Palestinian women in Israel, WAVOJOBS.com on January 19, 2010.
This site is the main and only link between Palestinian academic women jobseekers and employers who can offer different job positions.
This site starts to bring new solutions for Palestinian women, who want to get in the labor market and find the suitable job to their studies.
Despite the fact that the site is still operating at its early stages, more that 700 CV's of unemployed academic women are in the archive of the sites database. There are over 120 open positions from different sectors of private, public, and governmental sectors.