She is a woman on the wheels travelling across the country with the mission of encouraging women to learn and excel in driving skills for improving their employment opportunities. Meet Jai Bharathi, a biker who is based in Hyderabad has already covered more than 11,000 kilometres before she reached Vijayawada yesterday.

This initiative to encourage women to master driving and also help in removing impediments within the system in their employment is being supported by a United Kingdom-based charity Shell Foundation and the UK Government along with Moving Women Social Initiatives Foundation (MoWo). Known as “Moving Boundaries” it hopes to increase the job prospects for women in transport business including taxi services and e-rickshaws and also as delivery persons for e-commerce firms.

Bharathi, who is the founder of MoWo has been touring India from October 11 onwards covering more than 20 cities and in the current leg has reached Vijayawada. She started from Hyderabad and has touched Bengaluru, Chennai, Goa, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, , Jaipur, Amritsar, Srinagar, New Delhi, Lucknow, Patna, Guwahati, Kolkata, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar and Vizag among other place.

Explaining the campaign to the media, Bharathi said it aimed to promote awareness on the necessity and importance of women learning to drive and travel safely to enable them to expand their horizons.

She observed: “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 meet women from all strata and hold workshops to make driving an aspirational and achievable employment choice for them.”

The campaign has rolled out a WhatsApp-based chatbot and those wanting to join may text a “Hi” message on the WhatsApp number +91 8885916606 and get connected to partner organisations.