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Transcription
VO:
This interview is part of Visionary Realms, an audio series produced by FT Longitude in partnership with The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Meg Wright:
India, it's a vast and vibrant nation and the world's most populous country. Yet World Bank data shows that female labour force participation remains low at less than 33% compared to nearly 77% among males. And while these participation rates have increased in the decades since 1990, it's clear that the country still has a long way to go.
Hello and welcome to Visionary Realms, a series that explores new visions for community development, tourism and cultural landscapes. Each episode we take a close-up look at a community or region that is drawing on lessons from the past to build for a sustainable future. I'm your host, Meg Wright, and in this episode we're travelling to India as we ask how tourism can be a force for positive social change and female empowerment for generations to come. Joining me to discuss this is Meenu Vadera, feminist social entrepreneur and founder of the Azad Foundation. Hi Meenu. It's great to be speaking with you today.
Meenu Vadera:
Hi Meg. Very happy to be here. Thank you.
Meg Wright:
Look, Meenu, I think it would be great if you could take our listeners back to the beginning. How exactly did the Azad Foundation start and what was the vision that really inspired it?
Meenu Vadera:
Azad Foundation is a not-for-profit, which actually as I said, works with the community, works with the adolescent girls to help them shape their ideas of work and that they don't necessarily have to get married as soon as they finish their education.
As you said Meg, in India, women's participation in labour force is really low and in fact has been declining over the last couple of decades. So our vision was to really break the glass ceiling for poor women, particularly women from underprivileged communities and to make available opportunities for remunerative livelihoods with dignity for them, and to do this in such a way that they're also able to empower themselves, not just economically, but socially as well. The lack of women's participation in workforce is very symbolic, also of the great gender inequality which exists all over the world, but especially also in our country.
So we learn very quickly that for most underprivileged women, the job opportunities that are available to them were primarily traditional jobs, which were within the informal economy, low paid and mostly not protected. And if we have to look for remunerative livelihood options for them where they can become principal breadwinners in their family, we had to step out of traditional options and look at other such non-traditional livelihood options. And driving was one such opportunity.
Azad trains them in driving, but it also trains them in women's rights, in how to protect themselves from violence, in actually understanding that being a survivor of violence or a victim of violence is not their destiny and that they can change it. And it also provides other personally empowering modules such as simple things like English speaking or even counselling to help them deal with the various traumas, understanding of first aid and basic things which can help them cross and jump the various barriers that they would be jumping when they get to work as a driver.
And it gives women a power when they're able to control their mobility, when they are able to know more about their city, where the police station is, where the airport station, where are the key places where they can go to have fun, where they can go to access help. And so our intention was to use that not just as an opportunity to provide incomes for women, but to also make in such a way that they're able to gain control over their mobility and in doing that gain control over their lives over decision-making and their bodies. So that's how we started off.
Meg Wright:
Incredible. Talk to me a little bit about Sakha, which I understand is a partner organisation that is for profit.
Meenu Vadera:
That's right. So I'm the founder of Azad Foundation and Sakha both. Sakha was set up to then interface with the market and to provide employment opportunities to women who are now ready to work as chauffeurs. So when we started off, there was not a single woman professional chauffeur, at least in all of North India I can say that, or maybe one or two whom I don't know about, but broadly not. So Sakha's job was to build this faith that women can become professional chauffeurs, start looking for employment opportunities for them, and over a period of time, Sakha set up its own cab hire service, which gave opportunities to women drivers to work as professional chauffeurs. Sakha also undertakes a placement of women drivers with families, companies, with NGOs or hotels, industry, et cetera. And we also provide chauffeur on hire. So basically Sakha is a company where we provide livelihoods to women chauffeurs and riders in either transport, tourism or e-commerce sectors.
Meg Wright:
Wow. Not a small undertaking, but certainly a very powerful one based on what you've just said there. I'd love to drill a little bit more into the role that tourism is actually playing here.
Meenu Vadera:
Yeah, so I must say that this did not strike me in the beginning that women drivers in tourism, there was an overlap. And that happened when we built a partnership with G Adventures. And that’s how we realised there is a very significant overlap here. So we started doing business with G where we would pick up travellers from the airport and drop them to the hotel. And in doing that, it sort of opened up a whole world to the women drivers. I mean our drivers, they love to do these duties. They feel a sense of pride about driving people from different countries of the world around in Delhi. And these are women for whom their world was limited to the four walls of their home and many of them had never been outside their locality alone. So like I said, because of those restrictions on mobility, when they meet and greet people from countries, whose names also they perhaps have not heard before, and they share about it in their families and communities, the awareness of that itself gives them a sense of pride and recognition from others. And as they engage with the travellers and are in turn in their interactions treated with respect and dignity, an experience that I must say is not common for many women, it also validates their sense of empowerment and strengthens their own agency.
So yes, it has a very good reception. Which is why, like I said, we have been able to continuously, consistently grow our business with G. And today we take care of all their travellers who come to Delhi and we keep getting very good feedback from their CEOs from across the world.
Meg Wright:
What opportunities does tourism bring for your drivers and what sorts of benefits do they bring for the tourists in turn?
Meenu Vadera:
I think the entire world has opened up for women drivers. From the walls of their home, they're now the citizens of the world like you and me. It's like they say, what has once been seen cannot be unseen. And this is evident in the fact that many of them today have chosen to travel to Europe, and under a partnership that we have established with another transport company there, live there for a few years and become trailer drivers. Now this is like a completely magical change and their exposure, engagement and awareness that all of this will lead to. And I think a lot of this is because they have realised a world which is so much bigger than their own and they have gained confidence that they can engage as confident, independent, autonomous individuals in this world. And I think the interface with the tourists and the people that they transport has helped in that hugely.
And I think the tourists also gain, because when they are driven by a woman driver and when they connect with her, they listen to the stories, I think they learn about the country from a very different perspective because a lot of what we hear from people and from their stories is not what is available on mainstream tourist guidebooks or mainstream channels. And they are able to, I'm sure, build a connect and go back with this feeling that they have been able to contribute in a small way to the change in this woman's life. And I am sure, that's what we say, we are rides that connects hearts. And I think, I believe really in the power of relationships and mutuality and compassion. And when we are able to actually, people coming into India, they have a certain image of the country, but when they meet the women, they're able to build a more compassionate understanding of what it means to be poor. But at the same time an understanding of the courage that these women have and their agency and how they're able to make that change. So the relationship becomes more of a solidarity and less of a patronising kind of, ‘No, I'm helping you’ sort of a relationship. There is a mutuality there.
Meg Wright:
This success story really shows how small changes in tourists’ behaviour can start to have a huge impact on those host communities as well. Thinking more broadly then, what are some of the positive choices that you think tourists can then start to make to support social change in the destinations that they're visiting?
Meenu Vadera:
Absolutely, I think big changes can be made very possible by small actions on part of the tourists. By and large, I think travelling has become such a commodity or something to be consumed in our very sort of materialistic world today. But travelling used to be and still is about learning and discovering and experiencing. So I think the tourists could be more firstly deliberative when the plan their travel. By choosing community-based local enterprises over the large chains and multiplex cultures, they can actually encourage the local economy. I would say it kind of begins from where do you plan to go, to begin with. Like tourists could deliberate in perhaps choosing other than what are very regular conventional tourist hotspots. And many times the idea to go to these hotspots is really because you want to get photos taken in front of these famous spots and put it up on your social media, but it need not be so, and there is a whole world waiting out there to be discovered.
Tourists can also be very deliberative about other decisions such as, obviously in India, who is your transport partner going to be or where do you choose to stay, where do you shop and what do you eat and where do you eat? I mean all these small decisions could mean whether the money they are spending is going to remain in the local communities or a large percentage of it is going to go back out of the country that they are visiting. And I think also by obviously thinking through and making responsible use of plastic, water and other natural and energy resources, they can contribute to a more sustainable planet.
And once they get back by sharing on their social media, which is a world that we all live in, about all of these things, they can actually become agents of change and spread awareness. I think our world has reached a point where we cannot only be expecting the governments and policymakers to be doing something about it. I think every single person can contribute, must contribute, and what better use of one's money could it be where one is being able to be a small contributor to social change and also have fun in the process?
Meg Wright:
It's a very good point, isn't it? I think all too often we forget about the fun.
Meenu Vadera:
That has to be there.
Meg Wright:
And finally, Meenu, what advice would you give to other organisations that are seeking to use tourism as a catalyst for their own community empowerment?
Meenu Vadera:
Well, I would say that there are several of them already in the ecosystem who are working and giving priority to community tourism. And I think the first would be that learn from each other and spread the good practises around. I mean, everybody doesn't have to build from scratch and the new knowledge can be shared and can be made available to others, new initiatives that come on, new kids on the block, as they say, the new companies that come. I would suggest that they actively seek community-based partners and they listen and learn from them and respect the local constraints and challenges and co-build on the opportunities.
In our case, for example, one of the best things that happened to us with G was that we began with two cabs because we were obviously very small and with just a fraction of travellers. But today in Delhi, we take care of all the travellers that come into Delhi with G. So over time, we have been able to grow. A lot of community-based initiatives require support, require time, require capital to be able to grow as the opportunities come and to insist on a certain scale or certain number is not very helpful for them, which is why I say let them lead and follow and support and be a partner to them.
And to the community-based partners, I think I would say again, from our experience, that actually tourism offers such a wealth of possibilities and especially since it's one of those industries which employs a very high percentage of women and that we need to think out of the box and we need to see what all various connections we can make because there is that possibility of change and we can help connect communities with this wider global process of travel and tourism for their benefit.
Meg Wright:
Thank you, Meenu. Some really powerful examples there, I think of how tourism really can be a catalyst for economic and social empowerment and certainly for delivering female mobility and for changing the social landscape for generations to come. Thank you very much for joining me today, and we wish you all the best with the Azad Foundation.
Meenu Vadera:
Thank you, Meg. Thank you very much for having me in your programme and it was a pleasure talking to you and I wish you and all the people the very best, and may many more such initiatives come up.