We’re a social enterprise providing safe transport solutions for women by women in four Indian cities and creating well paid employment opportunities for women as professional taxi drivers and chauffeurs.
But Sakha Consulting Wings is part of a far bigger civil society movement that’s pushing for women’s empowerment andpromoting gender equality.
Every day that our women drivers take to the roads they show men and women on a city’s streets, business people and politicians in office blocks, and girls and boys in our different communities what gender equality means in practice and that she can do anything that he can do.
Our journey started in 2008
When we started out in 2008 many people were shocked by the suggestion of a taking a trip with a female taxi driver.
We were toldby established cab companies it was a nice idea that would never work. They said their customers wouldn’t feel safe with a woman behind the wheel and that women driverscouldn’t reverse park.
A decade later, in four India cities, our fleet of women driven cabs and professional female chauffeurs take corporate clients to business meetings, friends to meet one another at social gatherings, and foreign tourists around India’s famed tourist sites to be wowed by wonders of Incredible India.
We’ve shown the doubters that women can reverse park!
But there’s much more that needs to be done
The road ahead is far from being female friendly.
The International Labour Organisation has ranked India 121st out of 131 countries for female participation in the work force and, despite a doubling in the size of the Indian economy since the year 2000, the number and percentage of women in work has fallen. From an already low of 35% in 2005, the figure now stands at 26%.
For a woman hailing from a marginalised community its even tougher. Often lacking in skills, capital resources and living a life under the domineering control of husbands, family members and community forces, a woman’s ability to choose to work is severely constrained.
Working alongside the Azad Foundation we’ve created a unique partnership model.
Azad(and other civil society organisations trained by Azad) deliver professional driving and chauffeur training to marginalised groups of women, whilst Sakha creates the employment opportunities needed for these same women to enter the world of work as professional drivers.
Together, alongside the support of our donors, corporate clients and passengers, we’re changing the lives of India’s women for the better.If you’d like to learn more about what we do and how we do it, please contact me or any of my colleagues
Meenu
Meenu Vadera
Founder – Women With Wheels
In a decade, we have managed to provide employment to hundreds of women as professional chauffeurs and also provided millions of rides to women clients through our cab hire services in Delhi NCR, Jaipur, Kolkata and Indore.
1000+
Women Chauffeurs employed
1 million+
safe rides
INR 24Cr+
cumulative chauffer’s income
Some of the FIRSTS under our name…
FIRST All women cab service in India
FIRST in India to provide Women chauffeurs for private placements
Gave Delhi its FIRST women bus driver with DTC
FIRST women drivers to be placed with UNICEF, US Embassy, Leela Hotel, Delhi commission for Women, MCD in Indore, Park Hotel (Kolkata), Hotel Oberoi
Milestones
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2008Sakha began its journey in Delhi and first batch of 9 trainees commenced training at Azad Foundation
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2009Successfully placed 7 trainees through Sakha’s placement cell
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2010Launched cab hire services. Sakha also won reward on Bid Network’s Best Business Plan- Women in Business. Ms. Sheila Dikshit met Sakha’s Women drivers at her residence.
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2011TATA steel became our first corporate client. Sakha now consisted of 26 private placement, 7 commercial chauffeurs and owned 5 commercial vehicle
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2012Sakha was featured in the famous TV series ‘ SatyamevJayate’. 15 women drivers were honoured with ‘Kushal MahilaChalakSamman’ by the Ministry for women and Child welfare
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2013Sakha commenced its operations in Jaipur. UK prime minister David Cameron met Sakha Drivers
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2014Sakha’s Pool of chauffeur’s grew to 48 private and 18 commercial drivers. G-Adventures was added to the list of our corporate clients. Meru, Uber and Ola began offering employment to our women commercial drivers
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2015Sakha was launched in Kolkata and Indore. Sarita, a Sakha alumnus became DTC’s first women driver. Netherlands’ Prime Minister, Mr. Mark Rutte met Sakha’s drivers
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2016Sakha’s Chauffeur Lallta attended ASPBAE conference in Bangkok. Sunita Jaiswal Met Prince William and Kate Middleton on their India Visit
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2017Sakha chauffeurs Poonam, Khushi and Rakhi and founder Meenu Vadera, had the honour of meeting HRH Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall at the British High Commission, New Delhi
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2018Celebrated 10 years of empowering Women as professional chauffeurs. A new waiver on commercial license by the central government, speeded up the process
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2019Introduced cab hire services in Kolkata and our journey of soaring high and providing millions of safe rides continues