Annual Report 2012-13

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Dear Friends,

“Begin at the beginning” is very sound advice, except that sometimes it becomes very difficult to follow. I feel in the same boat now as I must talk about the end before I get to the beginning.

The end is the culmination of efforts in the year(s) gone by and its presentation in the form of this report. I believe that if it was not for this wonderful group of women called “Giving Women,” this report would not have been written in this beautiful format.

Working with this gorgeous group across continents, in writing about our work has been a great experience of collective energy and thought, of harmony and solidarity built across countries. In many cases, we have not even met each other, but seemed to understand with little difficulty the millions of comments and feedback, all the innumerable times the drafts went up and down. The process of writing the report rhymed hugely with what we at Azad and Sakha hold very dear—the principle of collective!

So I am thrilled to share with you our Annual Report and also a report of the last many years. Since this is the first time we decided to make a formal public document, we decided to do it such that the report spans the period of the last four years of Azad’s work, and in between zooms into “the year that was” to talk more specifically of the events and processes in the last year.

As many of you would already know, when we started with this initiative, “Women on Wheels,” and set up two institutions, Azad Foundation (the not-for-profit) and Sakha (the for-profit), it was amidst a lot of skepticism. We ourselves were not sure, as it was a road not trodden before. We made way as we got along, stumbled, made mistakes, burned our fingers, landed in many police stations across the city, and learned from all of it. Our challenges have been many. Some of these you will read about, and there have been others as well—raising resources, cracking through the mindsets on either end of the spectrum to mobilize young women to become drivers and to find clients who would like to employ them. So we learned to celebrate every small victory—getting a learner’s license, getting a permanent license; landing a job; acquiring a commercial license. The everyday stories we hear about women drivers and the things they have been able to do with their lives have inspired us and continue to fill us with energy. Just as I write this, I am getting emails about how wonderfully one of our chauffeurs made a presentation at the UNESCO conference in Jakarta, Indonesia about her experience of marginalization, survival, and transformation.

It was the first time she had traveled abroad and suddenly this has forever altered her status even in her extended family. A woman with three daughters and whose husband had walked out on her, she has so empowered herself that she has become an inspirational role model for her daughters. The sense of pride in their mother shines in their eyes.

We did one documentation, ‘Parvaz,’ which was released in March 2012 by our Chief Minister of Delhi, Mrs. Sheila Dixit. Some of you were perhaps with us on that day and surely experienced the energy and hope pulsating through all of us. A year down the line, we already feel it is inadequate and does not capture even half the story. We need to find more creative ways of expressing the change that we see happening every day in front of us, its complex nature, its ups and downs, and its multi-dimensional form. Change is never a linear process, and we have many times had to cross the same bridge several times. It would be very useful to share this learning, and we intend on doing that in this coming year. We hope this report will convey some measure of this excitement to you.

We were part of the One Billion Rising and have contributed to the collective energy as much as received energy by plugging into a global campaign for women, by women. The movement calls for an end to violence and for justice and gender equality. A lot of what we did as part of the campaign has already become a part of our regular work. Participating in these campaigns, meeting and interacting with celebrities and dignitaries, working round the clock 24/7, and handling the daily challenges of being a woman driver on the road, have given a lot of opportunities for them to learn, grow, and build confidence. Today, the nearly 60 professional drivers that we have are a force to reckon with for anyone. Not only are they the chief breadwinners in their families, but I can say here with confidence that the majority of them will not accept violence in their daily lives.

Many of the younger single women have postponed their initially planned early marriages and are making their own decisions about whom to spend their lives with. On the other hand, there are perhaps an equal number who have been trained over the years but who did not take up employment. We have, however, learned to persevere. We have also learned that our role is to continue planting the seed. There are those who blossom early and others who blossom late. And then there are always those seeds that remain seeds, holding within them their potential. But eventually, we will have a green forest of tall trees, bringing in with it the fresh air of change!

With just a small note of thanks to all our funding partners. Your support and faith in us have carried us thus far and will hopefully take us further.

The success of our work we owe to the learnings and experiences of the innumerable women and men who, over the last hundreds of years of the women’s movement, have paved the ground and nurtured our minds and souls with knowledge and wisdom about women’s rights. We build on that ground and humbly take full ownership of the mistakes we make.

I go back to Alice in Wonderland and would like to believe that your three minutes would definitely tempt you to read further.

“I have proved by actual test that a letter that takes an hour to write takes only about three minutes to read.” -Lewis Carroll

Meenu Vadera

Executive Director

Read the 2012-13 Azad Foundation Annual Report