A campaign ‘Moving Boundaries’ to encourage women and create awareness to learn driving to increase their job opportunities in transportation businesses and to remove roadblocks within the ecosystem.
To raise awareness, the Founder of Moving Women Social Initiatives Foundation (MOWO), Jai Bharathi, toured India on her motorbike for over 40 days covering 20 cities before reaching Goa.
“Women all over the world face restrictions on their mobility and are unable to travel long distance to acquire decent education or take up jobs which involve complex or unsafe commute which results in a restricted pool of job opportunities,” Bharathi said.
“Creating a safe environment where women have access to reliable transportation and they can drive their own vehicles to earn a living is a great way to increase employment opportunities for women in a sector which has predominantly been male-centric,” she added.
Shell Foundation, a UK-based charity and the UK government in association with MOWO is undertaking the campaign. This will help women to not only learn driving but also own electric vehicles which will, in turn, generate income and also reduce carbon emissions from transport.
The campaign is also being supported by ‘Even Cargo’, a social enterprise providing employment, training and electric vehicle ownership to women drivers.
Shipra Nayyar of Shell Foundation said, ‘Moving Boundaries’ promotes safe, affordable, and clean transportation for women for better access to basic amenities like healthcare, education and jobs and the focus is to also create an environment whereby more women can enter the workforce by learning how to drive and becoming owner-entrepreneurs of their vehicles in the transportation linked sectors such as e-rickshaws and as delivery agents.
“Our ambition is to enable equal access to opportunities for women by helping them become more mobile. We hope that in the next 5 years, by supporting and helping build capacity of more such enterprises that train and employ women from low-income households, we will see a sizable number of women drivers owning and driving electric vehicles in over 100 cities and villages across India increasing safe transportation and connectivity for other women,” she stated.
