VIJAYAWADA: Jai Bharathi, a Hyderabad-based bike rider, who is on a mission to encourage women to pick up driving skills so that they can have more employment opportunities, arrived in Vijayawada on Thursday after covering more than 11,000 kilometres across the country.
Shell Foundation, a UK-based charity and the UK Government in association with Moving Women Social Initiatives Foundation (MoWo) launched ‘Moving Boundaries’ - a campaign to encourage women to pick up driving skills and remove roadblocks within the ecosystem to increase their job prospects in transportation businesses including as taxi and e-rickshaw drivers or as delivery agents for e-commerce companies.
Under this campaign, Jai Bharathi, founder of MoWo is touring India on her motorbike since October 11 for a period of 40 days. She will travel to over 20 cities. Bharathi reached Vijayawada in 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, Allahabad, Patna, Guwahati, Kolkata, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar and Vizag among others. In an interaction with mediapersons here, Bharathi explained that the campaign was aimed to promote awareness on the importance of women acquiring the power of driving and travelling safely to expand their horizons in all aspects of their lives.
“Women all over the world face mobility restrictions. They are unable to travel long distances to acquire decent education or take up jobs which involve complex or unsafe commutes. This results in a restricted pool of job opportunities. I am very excited to to meet women from all strata and hold workshops to make driving an aspirational and achievable employment choice for them,” Bharathi said.
As part of the campaign, a WhatsApp-based chatbot has been rolled out. Those interested can text “Hi” on the WhatsApp number +91 8885916606 and the chatbot will connect them to partner organisations.