By preparing and placing women drivers as professional drivers, the Women on Wheels programme enables socially excluded female members of the society to move from the margins to mainstream economy. Through this process, we alter public perceptions about women’s participation in the booming public transportation sector and the role and status of women in society.
Our team continually evolves and improves the Women of Wheels programme strategy, based on learning and insights gathered throughout the years of operating. The strategy also builds on the work of other organisations working in the field of women empowerment to ensure the highest quality outcomes for the resource-poor women.
The Women on Wheels programme involves:
Outreach work
Why are we doing it?
The programme outreach work aims to mobilize resource-poor women to exercise their right to living lives with dignity by choosing bold and remunerative livelihood options.
Through outreach activities, we identify women from resource-poor backgrounds for the Women on Wheels programme. Our team engages deeply with women and their families and communities to create an environment that supports women in their choices and enables transformation.
How are we doing it?
We work with a team of community mobilisers, who are supported by Azad’s mobilization team. Our outreach and mobilization activities include transit walks to gather information about an area, large public events to raise awareness about the Women on Wheels programme and smaller events to enable one to one or group conversations.
Through meetings and employment camps we share inspiring stories of women drivers trained by Azad to get women and their families motivated and identify those who might be interested in the programme. We also provide counseling and conduct home visits to encourage family members to support women in their bold decision.
Our outreach work is currently taking place in five locations: east, south and north Delhi, Gurgaon, and Jaipur.
Training and support
Why are we doing it?
This part of the programme provides technical, women’s empowerment and personal growth training to fully equip women to become professional drivers. Azad team also ensures that the trained and qualified women drivers are placed in secure jobs as professional chauffeurs through our sister organisation, social enterprise Sakha Consulting Wings Ltd.
How are we doing it?
Upon a successful registration for the programme, women commence our learner-centred training programme, which takes between six to eight months depending on the individual pace of a trainee. Azad works with a range of government, business and non-governmental partners to offer the highest quality training.
The training modules include driving theory and practice, basic mechanics skills and on road identification and map reading. We provide self-defense classes, as well as classes on gender equality and legal rights of women and women’s health and sexuality. We also deliver training on self-caring, financial literacy, effective communication and English language classes.
In addition, the programme team assist the trainees to acquire citizenship document and accident insurance, open a bank account and obtain a uniform and mobile phone. If needed, we also engage family members to ensure women receive on-going support throughout their learning journey to complete the training. Women with very little means are also offered financial and other support by giving them access to interest free loans.
Fostering change agents
Why are we doing it?
Our work in this area is designed to help Azad trainees to facilitate improvements in the lives of their families and communities. Our team works with women’ rights organisations, networks and other existing collectives to ensure the trained women drivers are empowered to protect their lives and dignity and that of other vulnerable members of their family and communities.
How are we doing it?
The training modules on women’ rights, protection from sexual harassment and violence, sexual and reproductive health and others are the building blocks of this process. In addition, we coordinate a network of women drivers and other women employed in non-traditional spheres so they can support and learn from each other. We also provide access to counsellors to ensure women are accompanied throughout their journey and have somewhere to turn to if facing domestic violence.
We engage with awareness campaigns that can make an impact on the lives of women drivers and their communities. Azad women drivers and trainees are part of the women’s movement advocating for gender equality in India. Through their engagement, Azad has been able to take the One Billion Rising Campaign to the slums, bastis and many ‘middle and upper class’ localities in the Indian cities we work in. Our women drivers and trainees have also participated in and learnt from several campaigns such as the ‘Safe Delhi Campaign’, ‘Say No to corruption campaign’, and ‘Say no to violence against women’.
Advocacy
Why are we doing it?
We want to ensure that our work extends beyond the trained women and their communities. We are committed to influence change on the national level to make non-traditional livelihood options with dignity available to women of all walks of life. To achieve this, it is important we connect with other initiatives that bring women into non-traditional employments. We also document our successes to share with policy makers and build a case for addressing social concerns in livelihood training programmes.
How are we doing it?
We monitor the extent to which resource poor women benefit from existing women empowerment policies. Through continuous systematic research activities we build networks with other similar initiatives to form a collective voice to influence policy makers and donors to create a wider range of livelihood options for women. We advocate for options that help break gender stereotypes and inequality and provide well-paid livelihoods with dignity. We continuously engage in dialogue with the Government of India to modify, amend or introduce new policies.
