Help Women in India Become Professional Drivers

Thanks to your generous support, ten resource-poor women from various parts of India are now being trained at Azad Academy in Jaipur to become confident professional chauffeurs.

Read on to learn about how Women on Wheels travels further afield through Azad Academy and help women like Nirma who has always wanted to educate herself and work.

From Ahmedabad to Dharamshala

Our ambition here at Azad isto reach out to many more potential women drivers and to get Women on Wheels sprouted all over India. So we set up Azad Academy to enable women from areas where our programme currently does not operate to undertake residential training.

We established partnerships with six organisations that mobilised and selected women interested to become professional chauffeurs and transform their lives by proudly taking up this untraditional profession. Since March, ten daring women have been studying at the Academy. They took up the challenge of being apart from their families and friends to achieve their bold dreams.

All ten trainees have successfully passed exams for learner’s license after the first month of the training. Afterwards, they undertook driving lessons, English language modules, self-defense and legal training. In June, all returned to home places to take permanent license exams - and all of them have cleared it, with majority at their first attempt! Upon return to the Academy, they started on-road practice and learnt how to read maps and understand routes.

With few more months of learning ahead before being able to take up final exams and find work in the areas where they live, these women have already embarked on the irreversible road to empowerment.

Nirma is one of these incredible women…

Nirma is 19 years old and comes from Ajmer. She came into contact with our partner organization Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti (MJAS) thanks to her mother, a dispensary nurse. She is the oldest child of her parents, and was only educated till class 9 as her father and his family do not believe in educating their girls. This led to friction between Nirma’s father and mother.

Nirma was unable to pass class 10 due to family difficulties, but has always been keen to keep learning and get employed. So when the opportunity to be a part of the Women on Wheels programme came through MJAS, Nirma’s mother enrolled her.

One of the youngest in the programme, Nirma is also the brightest. A quick learner, Nirma is already ahead of her batch-mates. While most of the other trainees are only starting with on the road practice, Nirma is already doing self-drives with another trainee, Mamta.

‘I wish to be a proficient professional driver and I hope to reconcile with my father and prove to him and my family that daughters can make them proud too.’ says Nirma with a big smile.

Thank you for your support, which enabled us to give Nirma and other women second chance and hope.

We aim to welcome more women to Azad Academy once the first batch of trainees successfully graduates.

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