February 2016 Woman At Work Digital
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Taking Charge,<br />
SPECIAL FEATURE<br />
When the telephone directories have become obsolete, ‘yellow pages’ have dried grey,<br />
and traditional landlines have become a fixture of the past, then the best way to find<br />
people, places and products is through your smart phone. Using digital platforms and<br />
mobile apps, this women’s group is spearheading a revolution in the way dynamic women<br />
network, collaborate and create a helpline for themselves. Ritu Gorai, a mother and founder<br />
of this venture takes us through the journey of JAMM’s.<br />
by Megha Johari<br />
Journey About Mast Moms or<br />
JAMM’s, as it is called, is a<br />
support group for networking<br />
of Mumbai based mothers who want to<br />
be full time mothers or activate their<br />
dormant career graph. The core team of<br />
JAMM’s is a group of enthusiastic and<br />
dynamic mothers, managing over 6000<br />
JAMMies across social media platforms<br />
and apps like Facebook and WhatsApp.<br />
The founder of JAMM’s, Ritu<br />
Gorai, is a Mumbai based mother who<br />
conceptualised and rolled out JAMM’s<br />
in April 2014 purely to seek support for<br />
herself. “It was when I shifted back to<br />
Mumbai, this time as a mother, I<br />
realised I don’t have a support group to<br />
fall on. I found myself grappling with<br />
half baked information from unreliable<br />
sources. That is when I started<br />
networking in a small way among 25<br />
mothers, being one myself.”<br />
When a new mother joins JAMM’s<br />
she is added to the most suitable group,<br />
classified on the basis of the child’s age<br />
group. This makes it easier for the team<br />
to provide advice, solution and services<br />
for different needs of working or stay at<br />
home mothers based on their child’s<br />
stage. JAMM’s also uses the popular<br />
Facebook platform but is a by-invitation<br />
-only group where members get access<br />
only after joining through a referral<br />
process. This is important to keep the<br />
group clean, safe and secure.<br />
Ritu, who calls herself the Chief<br />
Connecting Officer (CCO) of JAMM’s<br />
is a pedigreed lady doing full justice to<br />
her lineage. Born to engineer parents, a<br />
doctor brother and wife of a celebrity<br />
chef Saby (Sabyasachi Gorai), Ritu<br />
brings freshness of talent to the endowed<br />
family. Besides being an NLP<br />
practitioner and corporate trainer, Ritu is<br />
a passionate Bharatnatyam dancer and a<br />
mystery shopper. She has been a<br />
performing artist and an instructor with<br />
some famous dance troupes in the<br />
country. She is also an expert advisor for<br />
a start up panel.<br />
Just like the founder, the philosophy<br />
of JAMM’s is discipline and tenacious<br />
focus towards the quality of services<br />
provided. To prevent digressing from the<br />
purpose, the group completely bans any<br />
kind of forwarding of jokes, images,<br />
videos or self promotion content for<br />
businesses. The group takes pride in its<br />
rules and rightly so. To respect privacy<br />
and appreciate families and their<br />
individuality, interaction on these groups<br />
are maintained within a 12 hour time<br />
frame for 6 days a week, 8am-11pm<br />
(Monday-Saturday).<br />
There are separate groups categorized<br />
based on the age group of the child like<br />
infants, toddlers, , a special group for<br />
single moms, professional groups for<br />
doctors, lawyers, HR & trainers,<br />
entrepreneurs, interest based groups<br />
like movie club, book lovers club and<br />
more. There is also a group for to-be<br />
mothers and grandmothers (senior<br />
citizens). JAMM’s is all about sharing<br />
best practices and initiating a thought<br />
process that allows mothers to think<br />
beyond ‘just being a mother’. From<br />
providing DIY tips, to kid friendly<br />
venues, health queries, career tips,<br />
school feedback, fun family events,<br />
one stop shops, vacation hotspots,<br />
recipes, maid issues, JAMM’s does it<br />
all.<br />
JAMM’s organizes weekday based<br />
themes. They invite experts,<br />
preferably moms, to speak on specific<br />
topics and answer online queries with<br />
respect to the themes. Some of the<br />
themes are Makeup shake up Monday,<br />
Guruwaar Gyaan, Full- on Friday and<br />
so on.<br />
In addition to this, the unique<br />
offerings of JAMM’s are its<br />
workshops and drive towards social<br />
causes. The team organizes workshops<br />
on various topics of interest to the<br />
group members. These workshops are<br />
usually complimentary and conducted<br />
in the vicinity, subject to availability<br />
<strong>February</strong> <strong>2016</strong> | 23
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