Publication Category: Yearbooks

A professional Feminist organisation working across social and religious divides, Azad Foundation’s objective is to enable urban resource-poor women to become empowered professional chauffeurs who can take charge of their own lives as well as create safe transport solutions for other women. The focus is primarily on providing nontraditional livelihoods with dignity for women through attempting to break patriarchal boundaries and structures, so that the women can exercise control over their lives. Therefore, Azad’s flagship programme, Women with Wheels (WWW) takes the women through a holistic, transformative-capacity building process of providing technical, self-empowerment and self-development training, in order to enhance their awareness of rights and equip them to become self-sustaining professional chauffeurs.

In 2019, the flagship program of Azad has had a strategic change in its brand name from Women on Wheels (WOW) to Women with Wheels (WWW) as it was realised that WOW was already a patented name that was being used by another initiative. We have applied for a registration under the name WWW now. Azad Foundation currently operates through their offices in Delhi, Jaipur and Kolkata and through likeminded partners in Indore, Ahmedabad, Bhuvaneshwar and Lucknow. In 2019-20, Azad Foundation also expanded its Women with Wheels programme to the city of Chennai.

The Year Book records the various stories of Azad trainees who have successfully attained their permanent driving license through the Women with Wheels programme. The stories attempt to provide an insight into each of these trainees’ lives which is a blend of struggles and achievements. In the year 2019-20, a total of 315 Women with Wheels trainees across Azad’s six training centres successfully obtained their permanent license. However, the Year Book consists stories of 270 trainees’. Some of the missing stories being due to lack of consent and not being able to reach out to some due to the onset of COVID-19 and the lockdown following it. Azad hopes that each of these outstanding women will in the future become an inspiration for their communities and other women, urging them to take control of their lives, and thereby building an ecosystem of change.

Read the Year Book for 2019-20

Azad Foundation is a professional Feminist organization working with urban resource-poor women across social and religious divides. Azad believes that when women are socially and economically empowered, they become the catalyst of change – not just in their own lives, but also in their families and communities. The purpose is to create a platform for disadvantaged women by providing them nontraditional livelihoods options that enhance their economic status, dignity, and decisionmaking within their families. The objective of the organization is to establish a cadre of empowered professional chauffeurs who can take charge of their own lives as well as create safe transport solutions for other women. Azad’s goal is to enable underprivileged women to empower themselves as professionals, to earn “livelihoods with dignity” in a non-traditional sector like transport and creation of a gender-just ecosystem within communities, gender-sensitive markets and supportive infrastructure, which help women negotiate, enter and sustain their workforce participation.

There is a great need to provide women with adequate skills and equip them with the means to, make informed choices and negotiate financial decisions thus making them independent and overall equal contributors. Azad Foundation challenges the long-standing gender norms that limit women’s economic choices through its idea of non-traditional remunerative livelihoods. Azad’s flagship programme WWW trains and prepares women who are from low economic and social capital to become professional and commercial drivers, while enhancing their awareness of rights, and providing them with opportunities for self-development and self-empowerment; thus challenging the notion that professional driving is considered a man’s domain, as a means of livelihood for resource-poor women.

Azad Foundation currently operates through its offices in Delhi, Jaipur, and Kolkata and through like-minded partners in Indore, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar and Lucknow. In 2020-21, Azad Foundation also expanded its Women with Wheels programme to the city of Chennai. In order to celebrate the hard work of our teams and the never-ending dedication of our trainees, every year we record the inspiring stories of our trainees who were able to acquire their permanent license (PL) in the current year.

This Year Book records the stories of Azad trainees who have successfully attained their permanent driving license (PL) through the Women with Wheels programme. The stories attempt to provide an insight into each of these trainees’ lives which is a blend of struggles and achievements. In the year 2020-21, a total of 91 Women with Wheels trainees across Azad’s six training centres (East Delhi, North Delhi, South Delhi, Jaipur, and North Kolkata & South Kolkata) successfully obtained their permanent license (PL) for both 4 wheeler & 2 wheeler. This yearbook consists of the success stories of our trainees who have achieved a Permanent driving license (PL) in the year 2020-21, both for 2 wheeler and 4 wheeler. Out of 91 trainees who achieved the PL, 19 achieved it for 2 wheeler and 72 for 4 wheeler across the centres. 91 women attained Permanent License (3 trainess in south Kolkata having attained both 2 wheeler and four wheeler license). We took consent of all the trainees mentioned in the yearbook for sharing their stories, photographs and names, some of the photographs are missing because either the trainees did not give consent for sharing their photograph or the team was not able to reach out to some trainees due to onset of Covid and lockdown. This yearbook is an endeavour to document and provide an insight into each of these trainees’ lives and struggles. Azad hopes that each of these outstanding women will in the future become an inspiration for their communities and other women, urging them to take control of their lives, and thereby building an ecosystem of change.

Although 2020-21 was a very tough year for everyone because of the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, yet at Azad foundation, we had enough reasons to celebrate, one of those are these 92 PL stories, which talks not only about the experiences of our trainees in the process of getting there PL but also their success in these challenging times. Since the very beginning of 2020-21, we saw a lot of challenges in terms of the implementation of our programs. Due to lockdown, we had to shift the whole training program to a virtual & digital platform which required a lot of efforts and resources. We took these challenges as an opportunity and looked at the positive side of them. We started to train our trainees on Zoom, through which they also became technologically equipped.

Read the Year Book for 2020-21

It is always a matter of pride for Azad foundation, to see the trainees graduating with flying colors and start their careers in the domain of a nontraditional livelihood. Being a feminist organization, working with urban resource poor women, Azad believes that when women are socially and economically empowered, they become a catalyst of change; not just for their own life but also for their families and communities. By providing nontraditional livelihood options to women, Azad aims to challenge the stereotypical belief of the society that women cannot work in this sector and it’s a male dominant market. The objective of the organization is to establish a cadre of empowered professional women chauffeurs who can take charge of their own lives as well as create a safe transport solution for other women. Azad wants to see underprivileged women as empowered professionals who would earn “Livelihoods with Dignity” in the transport sector and at the same time Azad also wants to create a gender just ecosystem and gender sensitive markets which would ultimately help the women to negotiate and sustain their workforce participation. Since Azad’s focus is to create “livelihoods with Dignity” for women who have been living on the margins of society. This requires not only skills and knowhow but also the confidence to claim the public space, the ability to negotiate a masculine domain of work.

Women across class, caste and communities have to face tremendous reproductive responsibilities, violence, discrimination and harassment at home, on roads and at workplaces which limits their time and ability for paid work. A training program geared to create sustainable livelihoods in the non-traditional sector which is majorly dominated by men, will create capabilities of negotiation and bargaining power. With this thought and belief Azad’s training curriculum spans three kinds of modules: technical skill based module leading to acquisition of Permanent license and clearance of Sakha test after which trainee is declared employable, self-development module that aims at developing women’s identity as a confident professional and the empowerment module that aims at enabling the trainee to understand her social location and the structure of patriarchy leading to build courage and strategies to counter and resist multiple oppressions.

Yearbook 2021-22 is an endeavor by Azad foundation to present the record of all the trainees who underwent the journey of a rigorous training and have successfully acquired their permanent driving license across Delhi, Kolkata, Jaipur and Chennai during the period of April 2021-March 2022. Under the flagship program of Azad that is “women with wheels” ‘ in the year 2021-22, total 206 trainees got their permanent license made. Total 206 trainees successfully acquired their license, including 113 for 4 wheelers and 93 for 2 wheelers. Each trainee in the system comes in with her unique story, challenges, experience and struggle, and hence for Azad it is very important to celebrate the achievement of trainee, who put in a lot of effort to break the chains, each trainee is very precious and this year book is a tribute to the achievements of our trainees which offer glimpse of each of these women’s story of effort and change.

Read the Year Book for 2021-22

Azad is a professional feminist organization that works on the social and religious divide to enable resource-poor women to empower themselves by engaging in nontraditional livelihood (NTL) options like professional driving. Azad, as a part of its flagship program “Women with Wheels”, trains and enables women with low economic and social capital to become professional and commercial drivers, enhancing their awareness of rights, and equipping them with empowering skills through transformative capacity building programs focusing on self and the skills needed for nontraditional livelihood, based on adult learning principles. Qualified women drivers are provided employment opportunities in partnership with Sakha, the for-profit strategic partner organization of Azad Foundation.

Azad Foundation, since its inception in 2008, has been committed to breaking the patriarchal boundaries and structures so that women from underprivileged backgrounds can exercise control over their lives, enjoy full citizenship, earn a livelihood with dignity and generate wealth and value for all. It is imperative to train women with adequate skills and means so that they can make informed choices and negotiate financial decisions, thus creating an equal say in each household. In these vibrant and inspiring pages, we capture the stories, triumphs, and achievements of the women who have risen above societal expectations, redefining what it means to excel in fields once considered unconventional for their gender.

Azad Foundation currently operates through its offices in Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata and Chennai, and with like-minded partners in Indore, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow. To celebrate the unfathomable dedication of the trainees, every year, we record inspiring stories of the trainees who acquired their permanent license (PL) in the current year. This Yearbook provides you with a compendium of trainees across different centres of Azad Foundation who successfully obtained their permanent driving license through the “Women with Wheels” program. These stories are an attempt to provide meaningful insight into the lives of each trainee, highlighting their struggles for success and passion for achievement.

As we flip through these pages, we will encounter stories of resilience, innovation, and courage. We will delve into the experiences of those who found their callings in fields where they were once underrepresented, proving that the path less traveled can indeed be the most rewarding. These women have embraced challenges as opportunities, faced adversity with unwavering strength, and turned their dreams into reality with perseverance as their compass. Each photograph and anecdote serves as a testament to women’s empowerment, illustrating the importance of providing equal opportunities and dismantling societal barriers. The stories within remind us that true progress lies in fostering an environment where all individuals are free to pursue their passions, unencumbered by preconceived notions of what they can or cannot achieve.

Read the Year Book for 2022-23

A professional Feminist organisation working with urban resource poor women, Azad Foundation’s objective is to enable them to become empowered professional chauffeurs who can take charge of their own lives as well as create safe transport solutions for other women. The focus is primarily on nontraditional livelihoods with dignity for women. With its inception in New Delhi in 2008, Azad Foundation has over the last 10 years expanded its operations to Jaipur and Kolkata. It also works in collaboration with partner NGOs in Indore, Ahmedabad and Bangalore.

Women on Wheels (WoW) is the flagship program of Azad. Through a transformative capacity building process, WoW enables women to engage in a non-traditional livelihood, namely professional driving, thereby, facilitating women marginalized in the society to move from the margins to the mainstream economy creating wealth and value for all. Through this process, Azad foundation aims to alter public perceptions about women’s participation in the booming public transportation sector and the role and status of women in society.

This yearbook records the stories of Azad trainees who have successfully attained their permanent license, an essential step to becoming a professional driver. In the year 2017-18, a total of 303 Women on Wheel trainees across Azad’s six training centres successfully obtained their permanent driving licence. The yearbook is an endeavour to document and provide an insight into each of these trainees’ lives and struggles. Azad hopes that each of these phenomenal women will in the future become an inspiration for their communities and other women, urging them to carve out their own spaces.

Read the Year Book for 2017-18

We are a professional feminist organization working across social and religious divides to enable resource-poor women to empower themselves by engaging them in viable nontraditional livelihood options. We are committed to breaking patriarchal boundaries and structures so that the women can exercise control over their lives and live a life of dignity.

We do this through transformative capacity building programs around the self and the skills needed for NTL, based on adult learning principles. We engage with both men and women in their communities so that both can construct a safe and supportive space for their development.

We envision a world where all women (in particular, women from underprivileged contexts) enjoy full citizenship, earn with dignity and generate wealth and value for all. Our mission is to equip resource-poor women so that they excel as professionals and/or entrepreneurs, earn a “livelihood with dignity” in jobs and markets that had traditionally been closed to them.

The Year Book is an endeavor by Azad to bring to light the various stories of women who have ‘graduated’ from Azad in the respective year. This is to say the number of women who have acquired their permanent license in Azad. In the year 2016-17, 234 women were able to get their permanent licenses made and we have compiled their life stories in this Yearbook. The attempt is to document the journey of these women, the challenges they face both within and outside the training and in their personal lives. Furthermore, it explores the moments of fearlessness and realization of self-esteem of the women during the course of training.

Read the Year Book for 2016-17

Azad Foundation’s Year Book is both a record and an exploration of the journey of trainees with the Women on Wheels (WoW) Programme. WoW is the flagship programme of Azad where women from resource-poor backgrounds (economically and socially deprived) are trained to become professional chauffeurs through a 6-8 month long training.

Azad’s focus is to create livelihoods with dignity for women who have been living on the margins of society. This requires not only access to skills and know-how (of driving) but also the confidence to claim the public space, the ability to negotiate a ‘masculine’ domain of work and surmount the challenges this throws up. Women from across class, caste, and community also experience tremendous reproductive responsibilities at home limiting their time and ability for paid work. Violence, discrimination, and sexual harassment are also rampant at home, on roads, and at the workplace. A training programme geared to create sustainable livelihoods in the non-traditional sector (which has traditionally been men’s domain) for women has to create capabilities of negotiating or redistributing unpaid reproductive responsibilities as well as resisting violence and harassment. It is with this in mind that Azad’s training curriculum spans three kinds of modules: technical skill-based modules leading to the acquisition of Permanent License and clearance of the Sakha test after which the trainee is declared employable; self-development modules such as Communications, English Speaking, Work Readiness, and First Aid aimed at developing women’s identity as confident professionals; and empowerment modules such as Self-Defense, Gender Rights, Legal Rights, Sexuality, and Health which are aimed at enabling the trainee to understand her social location and the structure of patriarchy leading to the building of courage and strategies to counter and resist multiple oppressions.

The Year Book documents stories of trainees who have acquired the Permanent License, across Delhi (South, East, and North), Jaipur, and Kolkata centres of Azad, in the period April 2015-March 2016. Given the socioeconomic background of trainees and the multiple ways in which they engage with the curriculum, the Year Book cannot be a compilation of dates and achievements. Each trainee comes in with her unique story, unique experience, and unique struggle. For Azad-a trainee is not a number. She is a precious individual who makes Azad an opportunity to assume control over her life and livelihood. The Yearbook offers a glimpse into each of these women’s stories of struggle and change.

Read the Year Book for 2015-16

Most of the trainees come from resource-poor families with sufficient distinction in their age, education, and marital status. A total of 31 batches underwent training during the year 2014-15 (April to March). There were nine batches each in the Mount Kailash and Model Town offices; six batches in the Gurgaon office and seven in the Jaipur office. Trainees from these batches who have acquired a permanent license have been highlighted in this Year Book. A total of 110 trainees acquired a permanent license in the year 2014-15. They have varied educational qualifications and the age range is also wide. Azad hopes that these motivated women become torchbearers for other women and thus claim a space for themselves in the vocation which has so far been considered a male bastion. The journey has just begun!

Read the Year Book for 2014-15