Under this campaign, Jai Bharathi, founder of MOWO is touring India on
her motorbike from October 11th for a period of over 40 days and coveringover
20 cities to create awareness and encourage women to learn driving to increase
their jobopportunities. Today, Ms Bharathi reached Kolkata on the current leg
of her tour. Starting from Hyderabad, she has covered Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi,
Goa, Pune, Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Jaipur, Amritsar, Srinagar,
Chandigarh, New Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Patna, Guwahatiand would now be
coveringRanchi, Bhubaneshwar, among others.
The campaign seeks to promoteawareness on the importance of women acquiring
the power of driving and travelling safely to expand their horizons in all
aspects of their lives.The focus is on enabling women to not only learn driving
but also own electric vehiclesto generate income which in turn can also reduce
carbon emissions from transport.
‘Even Cargo’, a social enterprise providing training, employment, and
electric vehicle ownership to women drivers is also supporting this campaign.
As part of the campaign, a WhatsApp based chatbot has
been rolled out for women who would like to learn driving a two or
three-wheeler vehicle or apply for a job as taxi, auto or delivery rider. Any
interested person can express their interest by dropping "Hi" on the
WhatsApp number +91 8885916606 and the chatbot will connect them to nearby
partner organisations like Even Cargo which offer training and employment
opportunities to women. The chat support is available in multiple languages.
Commenting on ‘Moving Boundaries’, Ms.
Jai Bharathi, Founder of
MOWO said, “Women all over the world face restrictions on their mobility. They
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 jobopportunities.
I am very excited to take on this 40-day journey on my motorbike across the
country to meet women from all strata and hold workshops to make driving an
aspirational and achievable employment choice for them. 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.”
Speaking on the partnership, Mrs.
Shipra Nayyar of Shell Foundation said, “We launched ‘Moving Boundaries’ to
promote safe, affordable, and clean transportation for women for better access
to basic amenities like healthcare, education, and jobs. The focus is also to
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 asdelivery 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”
Promoting employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for women is an important goal for Shell Foundation. Together with the Government of UK, Shell Foundation launched POWERED (Promotion of Women in Energy Related Enterprises for Development) in 2017, a women-focused programme to increase participation of women across the clean energy and mobility value chain in India. POWERED programmesupports enterprises that promote inclusion of women in jobs in the transportation and logistics sector as well as enable them to own electric vehicles to earn an income.
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