Collection at AWA

Division of AWA collection

AWA collection can be broadly classified into following three categories:

1. Founder’s archival collection: Dr. Avabai Wadia’s Collection 
   
   This contains a variety of materials pertaining to Dr. Avabai Wadia’s personal life. AWA has 172 books from her personal collection. Photographs, manuscripts as well as letters, personal greetings are part of archive collection. The collection also has medals and souvenirs of Dr. Avabai Wadia. We are also the repository of her Padmashri and Padma Vibhushan awards.

2. Continuing collection: Research Fellowship Collection
   
   Every year, three fellowships are awarded and are contributing major part in collection development policy at AWA. These research fellowship candidates are selected after scrutinizing applications and later called for personal interviews by Working Committee members of AWA.

   Research Fellowships are granted to researchers who aim at retrieving and / or generating archival material in following subjects:

   • Lives of Twentieth century pioneering women who had contributed to Gender Justice, Health, Liberal Arts, Women’s Education, Women’s Empowerment, Women’s Entrepreneurs

   • Women’s organizations, campaigns and emancipator struggles of women

   • Women’s contribution in any other field

   AWA has awarded 22 fellowships (scroll down for complete List of Fellowships) from the year 2010 to 2022 and has extensive archival material such as oral histories, audio video interviews, historical photographs, summaries, unpublished documents, letters, songs, and documentaries which are archived in digitized format. It has diversified coverage in women’s field such as feminist voices, women activists’ experiences, biographical monograph, women and health, empowerment, women’s organizations namely MASS, FORUM, Jyotisangh, etc.
    
3. Other Collection
   
   This includes collection of Aviation project (collection of first woman pilot in India), Majlis NGO legal documents, Indian Association of Women’s Studies (IAWS) archive collection, etc.