Annual Report 2015-16

Dear Friends,

It’s a privilege to be able to share our annual report for the year 2015-16 with you. The year was a very special one in the life of Azad. At the beginning of the year, Azad had completed seven years and two strategic plans in its short and exciting life. And as we looked towards developing a new strategic plan we realized that so much of the context around us that had informed the work of Azad had changed. To some extent, we feel we have been a part of this change – in our own very small and humble manner.

In 2008, when we started, there was only one publicly known professional woman auto driver. In 2015, there were more than 300 women professional drivers trained by Azad, on the roads of Delhi, NCR, and Jaipur all together. In 2008, none of the radio cab Companies we visited to understand the market were interested in the idea of women drivers. One of them said to us in so many words, “this won’t work, we have done it and written it off…” In 2015, one of the largest radio cab Companies introduced a special service for women with women drivers. The new aggregator models on the block are wooing very aggressively to bring women drivers on the roads.

In 2008, driving as a possible livelihood option for women was not a priority with the Government. Or if it was, it was lying in some resolutions passed in dusty files of bureaucrats. In April 2015, Delhi Transport Corporation got its first woman bus driver in the history of Delhi and in March 2016, Delhi Commission for Women recruited 25 women drivers for (wo) manning their mahila helpline.

In short – the scenario in 2015 was very different to the one we were starting within! We at Azad are thrilled to have played a role in this significant change of context. We may have pioneered it, or may have pushed it, or just made a case by persevering with the idea and practice of it. And we were supported in this, by a very large number of partners, individuals, and organisations who worked with us, critiqued us, supported us, cheered us on, and held our hand when the going got tough. The going was often tough.

But all of this has given us the confidence to dream bigger and aspire higher. We engaged with many of our partners, donors, friends, and well-wishers in March of 2015 as we embarked upon the journey to draft a five-year strategic plan (this time, instead of a 3-year one… 3 years seem to pass very quickly!!). Quite a few of you reading this would remember being there and helping us think through our core enquiries. And then we talked amongst ourselves and spent a few months reflecting, questioning, challenging, re-thinking, and re-examining our ideas. And eventually, we developed our core commitments for the next five years:

• 350,000 women living in bastis across Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, and Indore will know that they have a choice in life. That they can choose to say no to violence, to choose a livelihood with dignity, to be safe in their homes and public spaces, and claim their rights and entitlements as a citizen.
• 3,600 young women community leaders will be working as community change agents, providing information to women in their neighbourhoods, support for accessing basic citizenship documents, knowledge about how to file FIRs, and where to go for accessing help. 900 young men in these communities would be working alongside, questioning the stereotypical understanding of masculinity and how men should behave. They will be demonstrating caring and sensitive behavior, they will themselves not be violent, and discourage violence against women around them.
• 2,620 women will be working as professional chauffeurs, earning a livelihood with dignity and exercising control over their own lives and bodies.
• At least 4 organisations in different geographies would be implementing a Women – on – Wheels in their cities, adapted to their contexts and in partnership with Azad.
• We will have a more enabling policy context for women wanting to take on non-traditional livelihoods, especially in the field of driving.

Clarity unleashes energy. As we moved into the second half of the year, the collective energy of the team made so much possible. The following pages of the report share glimpses of our achievements with you. Looking back, the most significant part of these were the multiple forms of partnerships that we were able to establish:

• Our partnership with NSK-FDC helped us to provide the opportunity of “livelihoods with dignity” to many more women from the most marginalized sections of society. Along with SAMAAN in Indore and JanVikas and Saath in Ahmedabad, we are looking at enabling hundreds of more women to take on driving as a profession. We will be exploring more such partnerships in the years to come.
• Thoughtshop Foundation helped us mobilise our first few batches of women trainees in Kolkata and set up the Women on Wheels programme in Kolkata.
• In partnership with the global One Billion Rising Campaign, in its fourth year now, brought together many organisations, individuals, and most importantly the women drivers and trainees, across Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, and Indore who danced and sang as they claimed public spaces as their own.
• Our partnership with a group of women writers (Deepti Priya Mehrotra, Runu Chakraborty, Sunita Thakur, and Jaya Shrivastava) has helped us to put together a book entitled “Lady Driver.” The book chronicles stories of 12 women drivers and attempts to bring forth the complex nuances of what it takes to transform one’s own life conditions. We look forward to its publication in 2016.
• Strategic Partnerships with Human Dignity Foundation, Oak Foundation, Empower, AJWS, Royal Netherlands Embassy, Planeterra Foundation, COMO Foundation, and Global Giving UK enabled us to deliver on our commitments and also helped build our work further.
• Sakha – our most intimate strategic partner – provided employment to 75 women drivers in this year while engaging 14 women as commercial drivers.
• Our partnership with women across Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, and Indore continues to enthuse and inspire us as we co-construct together the ‘badlav ka safarnama’ (journey of change).
• Our partnership – young and emerging – with young men from across the bastis we work in fills us with hope of communities where women are able to freely live up to their aspirations.

The team of Azad would like to thank all the partners without whom this journey could never happen. We would like to retain the institutional space – of creativity and critical reflection that we have built with a lot of effort – as we move forward into 2016-17, with many dreams in our eyes, and songs on our lips!!

Till Next Year then….

Meenu Vadera
Executive Director

Read the 2015-16 Azad Foundation Annual Report