Help Women in India Become Professional Drivers

Your support is enabling us to work with like-minded partners on growing the cohort of women on wheels, and providing safe transport to women in more places.

In December 2016, we joined forces with TaxShe in Bangalore, a company that provides women drivers on call to safely transport children, elderly people and women around the city, to help them train more women drivers for their transportation service, and empower disadvantaged women to earn livelihoods with dignity as professional drivers. TaxShe established a not for profit sister concern, Neeva Foundation – which we have been supporting in establishing a training programme, based on our Women on Wheels model, to prepare women as professional drivers.

We provided a week-long training to the Neeva team on all the aspects of Women on Wheels programme approaches and have been mentoring and supporting Neeva since, along their journey of establishing the training programme in Bangalore.

Neeva initially enrolled 33 resource-poor women for the training, who already had had driving license but were not able to drive. Though they were able to increase their driving skills to the professional level and apply for commercial license much faster.

All the women undertook driving school training and on-road practice modules to polish their driving. Most of the trainees have also undertaken empowerment and self-development modules focused on Communication, Map reading, First Aid, English, and Gender, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Legal Rights.

19 drivers are already employed by TaxShe. Some work part-time in TaxShe’s school pick up and drop offservice, faring school children to a from their schools. TaxShe also enabled four drivers to purchase their own car and work with TaxShe as independent entrepreneurs. Depending on the duty hours and the set up, they earn between Rs. 8,000 to 40,000 – all significantly increasing their family incomes. Gayatri is one of them…

Swapping seats with husband

Gayatri came with an unfulfilled desire to learn driving. Since her husband is a cab driver, she has always felt she should become a cab driver too. When the opportunity to join Women on Wheels training run by Neeva came up, he was interested to delve into it. Her husband supported her decision and agreed to share the responsibilities of bringing up their kids and managing household chores.

Gayatri enjoyed the various training modules: ‘Through different empowerment and development aspects of the training, I am able to see new developments in my life.’

Her determination and focus helped her get employed with TaxShe on a profit sharing basis. She invested some money to purchase a cab, paying EMIs out of her earnings, earning around Rs. 45,000 per month after repaying the loan. She works for 6-7 hours a day and earns more than her husband; he now took on care of the kids, while she goes for her duties.

Gayatri has become the primary bread winner in her family.

'From housemaid, today I'm a business owner - I decide which work to take, what is better for me and my family. All my relatives and friends are in awe of me, people notice and respect me, people see me as na example.'

Thank you for helping us to change lives. Thank you for enabling women to get on wheels.