Viira Cabs: Lady chauffeurs for Mumbai
By Alisha Patel 27 January, 2011
Viira is a cab service for women, a female driver bureau, a recruitment agency and a motor training school.
Revathi Roy is a rally car driver turned entrepreneur in a simple cotton sari. Have you ever met a woman like that before?
Roy started Forsche (as in Porsche) in 2007, a cab service for women only, which was borne out of financial necessity. With a husband in a coma and a child at MIT, making ends meet was difficult.
Her new company employed and trained women to be strong drivers at a time when, she says, “No one had ever heard of a commercial driver being a woman.”
Her success in training India’s first female taxi drivers is evident on the streets of Mumbai, the city she calls ‘home.’
Thanks to ideological differences with an ally, Roy recently let go of her brainchild, to start her newest driving (ad)venture — Viira Cabs. The company, officially launched on January 17, was started by Roy and Preeti Sharma Menon, a friend of Roy’s who was looking to do something new.
Viira, meaning courageous woman, is unique in its structure.
Whilst it’s a cab service for women, it’s also a female driver bureau, a recruitment agency and a motor training school.
All drivers, whether part of the regular cab-service or whether hired by customers as personal chauffeurs, go through a training program of which the company ought to be proud.
For Rs 10,000 and over a period of three months, women at Viira’s motor training school undergo 155 hours of driving in addition to classes on road knowledge, traffic signs, martial arts, customer relations, etiquette and grooming!
Once trained, many of these women are recruited by large corporations and hotels. Today, some of them can be seen at the front of a BMW.
How did Roy come up with such a great idea?
“Viira came about because I saw a need,” Roy says. “It was just a normal business.”
When I ask her whether it was a result of high rates of sexual harassment in the city, or perhaps a reaction to cultural sensitivities, she shakes her head vehemently.
The entrepreneurs, however, know that her “normal business” isn’t exactly ordinary. It has empowered hundreds of young women by recognizing that driving is a skill that can given many Mumbai ladies a dignified living — apart from a whole lot of confidence.
“Viira is a very powerful platform for poor, urban women who are now able to earn up to Rs 12,000 a month. I see this every day. My hope now is to go to Tier 2 cities where Indian women are most starved of opportunities,” Roy says.
Do women make good drivers, then?
“It’s a misnomer to say women are bad drivers. Driving really has nothing to do with ones gender. It is a skill. Either you have it or you don’t.”
But Viira’s USP, beyond being all-female, is undoubtedly its service. A quick look at the inside of a Maruti Eco Viira cab and you’ll know precisely what that means.
Every woman has to wear blue jeans and a striped shirt with polished black shoes. In addition, Viira has given its drivers silver nail polish, pink lipstick and a pair of pearl earrings. As they smile for a picture, it is more than apparent that Roy is a veritable, sub-continental Professor Higgins.
But if these gentle-looking creatures are harassed, God help you.
“If drivers find eve teasers they’ve been told to just hammer them. We’ve put pepper spray and batons in every single car. We’ll deal with the cops later,” quips the co-founder.
While Roy thinks there’s a market for this kind of business in many cities, she knows that it is Mumbai’s relative safety that has made her ventures possible.
Her hope is that Viira will increase the mobility of senior citizens and young girls who will feel much safer in the hands of a trained, female driver.
“The attitude of Indian mothers is changing. Now they know their daughters go out and drink. They realize they may as well keep them safe by putting them in the hands of a woman who at all times is playing the role of a mother or a sister. A man can’t be a woman. And just because a woman is sitting at the wheel she doesn’t become a man.”
So what’s next?
Roy and Menon are currently working on an rickshaw project for women. Driven by women and for women only, these autos will be available outside railways stations and will be meant for women to share. So what if a man is accompanying a woman?
“No men allowed at all! No, no, no! We don’t want them!” Roy concludes.
To book a Viira cab call +91 (0) 22 6120 6120 or email info@viiracabs.com; www.viiracabs.com
Read more: Viira Cabs: Lady chauffeurs for Mumbai | CNNGo.com http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/life/viira-cabs-women-can-drive-592108?hpt=Sbin##ixzz1CpNIySuH
Reference Link : http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/life/viira-cabs-women-can-drive-592108?hpt=Sbin#
Courtesy : CNN
Where Few Women Go: A Building Site
Sharon Darling, 24, is a graduate of a program at Nontraditional Employment for Women, a group that prepares women for union jobs in the building trades, and has been an apprentice with Electricians Local 3 for nearly a year. In five years, she will attain the status of mechanic, earning $40 to $50 an hour and the authority to delegate grunt work like hauling 90-pound bales of wire to apprentices like her. She lives in Midwood, Brooklyn.
A start in carpentry: I attended a lot of schools with performing arts programs, and I came across carpentry when I was at P.S. 152. I found out I really loved building sets for the school musicals; I helped build the set for “The Lion King,” and I was in it, too. I went to Sullivan County Community College upstate and got an associate’s degree in construction technology. Then I came back to the city and couldn’t find a job.
The switch to electric: A friend of mine told me her grandmother had gone to the NEW program and become a carpenter, so one day I went to an information session. I took a math and English exam, went through an interview, and got accepted to their program. I thought I would be going for carpentry, but I switched to electric because I loved the math theory that you have to use: math, physics, science, everything. This is the best trade as far as using your brain goes.
Fashion interval: I had to wait a year to take the test to get into the union. You have to wait until a spot opens. The test takes about five hours; it’s really tedious, and those who do pass it, I would call them warriors. I worked at the J. Crew at Rockefeller Center until the union notified me; all that year I was thinking, “I have to get this career; I have to get a job that gives you benefits and all the things you need to survive in this world.”
On the job by 7: I was never a morning person, but when you’re in the union, you have to be at the site by 7 and tardiness is not tolerated. We’re like vampires, up at 4 or 5 in the morning so we can get wherever we need to be. I live in Brooklyn but my job site for the last eight months is at a school that’s being built in Queens; it takes an hour to get there.
The only girl: The first job I was assigned was in Brooklyn. It was at a new school that was pretty much finished, so I was only there three days. The first day was scary. Everybody is looking at you because you’re the only girl. My second job, the one I’m still at, was much better. The foreman got me straight to work at 7, and I felt like, “I can do this.” The fear was gone.
The name thing: Oh, God, they call me “darling” all day long, and they say they can get away with it because it’s my name. As long as they don’t take it no further, I’m O.K. with it. But you keep it moving; you can’t mingle. When you’re on a big job, you’ve got carpenters and roofers and plumbers. There can be a thousand men. And you know the stereotypes men have: They think I should be home having babies, or doing hair or nails, girly stuff. But I’m hanging in here; I’m carrying the same tools. I feel like I’m worth something.
Reference Link
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/nyregion/15entry.html?_r=2&nl=nyregion&emc=ura3
Courtesy
The New York Times Company
Text messages save pregnant Rwandan women
A man scrolls through his mobile phone to carry out a money transaction in Nairobi May 12, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Noor Khamis
(Reuters) – At midnight Valentine Uwingabire’s back began to hurt. Her husband ran to tell Germaine Uwera, a community health worker in their village in the fertile foothills of Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.
Equipped with a mobile phone from the local health center, Uwera sent an urgent SMS text message and within a quarter of an hour, an ambulance had whisked Valentine to hospital. Minutes later Uwingabire’s third child was born.
“We called our child Manirakoze, which means ‘Thank God’,” she told reporters, sitting outside her mud and bamboo house pitched in the shadow of Karisimbi volcano, home to some of the world’s few remaining highland mountain gorillas.
Had it not been for Rwanda’s new Rapid SMS service, Valentine would have been carried in agony, down the hill to the nearest town on an improvised stretcher.
As is the case in much of Africa, fixed-line telephone networks are virtually non-existent outside of the capital and major cities.
The Rapid SMS scheme — a joint initiative between three U.N. organizations — is being tested in the Musanze District where 432 health workers have received mobile phones.
Health workers register pregnant women in their village via free SMS text messages and send regular updates to a central server in the capital, Kigali. They are monitored during the pregnancy, and those at high risk brought in for check-ups.
Rwanda, Africa’s most densely populated nation, is ranked among the world’s worst for maternal mortality, according to U.N. data, and it is an important target for the global body’s goal to reduce maternal deaths by 75 percent globally by 2015.
“NO MATERNAL DEATHS”
John Kalach, director of the nearest hospital in Ruhengeri, says since Rapid SMS launched in August 2009, his hospital has had no maternal deaths, compared to 10 the previous year.
“We used to get ladies coming here with serious complications just because they delayed the decision because the journey was very long,” he says.
Kalach says authorities can use the data to work out which diseases affect women during pregnancy, the causes of death for children below five years, the volume and type of drugs required, and to monitor population growth rates.
Friday Nwaigwe, UNICEF’s country head of child health and nutrition, says the next step is to give mobile phones to 17,500 maternal health workers across the country and eventually to all 50,000 community health workers.
“In Rwanda we have 750 out of every 100,000 pregnant women die every year. It’s a very big problem,” Nwaigwe says.
Still, in a nation where only six percent of its 10 million-strong population has access to electricity, a country-wide expansion of the scheme may run into problems.
Germaine says to charge her phone she has to walk 20 minutes to the nearest charging booth, and Kalach says some remote areas of the hilly country do not yet have network coverage.
But surrounded by trees heaving with chandeliers of green bananas and fields bursting with beans, Uwera and Uwingabire agree a simple text message has had a big impact on their lives.
“We used to use a traditional ambulance made of mats, like a stretcher made of papyrus and sticks. It takes one hour by walking — or five minutes in a car,” Germaine says, cradling baby Manirakoze and proudly brandishing her mobile telephone.
Reference Link
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64R2CL20100528?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100
Courtesy
Thomson Reuters
Towards empowerment of women and children
SPEWC, a district-level statutory body, launched
Integrated Child Protection Scheme also launched
Collector highlights need to focus on trafficking
— Photo: A.V.G. Prasad
West Godavari ZP Chairperson M. Seshu Babu and Collector A. Vani Prasad honouring streetchildren with a bouquet at the launch of the SPEWC in Eluru on Friday.
ELURU: The Society for Protection and Empowerment of Women and Children (SPEWC) was launched here on Friday as a district-level statutory body to address issues concerning women and children and to strive for their empowerment. It would function as an arm of the State-level body – Andhra Pradesh Society for Protection and Empowerment of Women.
Objective
An Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS), another forum to focus on the plight of children, was also launched on the same platform.
K. Raghava Rao, Project Director, Women and Child Welfare Department, who is member-convener of the district-level body, said the society would strive to promote gender equity, provide vulnerable women and children access to quality services and opportunities for building an equitable society through convergence and partnership.
It would also work in sync with various governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society organisations and international development agencies for effective implementation of the programmes and services meant for the welfare of children and women.
Domestic violence
Collector A. Vani Prasad would act as Chairperson and Superintendent of Police C. Ravi Varma as vice-chairperson of the society.
Speaking at a function in this connection, the Collector said the emergence of the SPEWC and the ICPS had become necessitated in the wake of increasing incidence of domestic violence.
Some 10,000 cases of dowry harassment are reported in the State every year. The incidence of infanticide and foeticide is on the higher side. The female dropout rate is on the rise and the number of cases of women and girls subjected to trafficking is growing. The Collector highlighted the need for society to focus on trafficking in women and children and usurious activities of micro finance activities, subjecting SHG women to exploitation and harassment in the district.
M.M. Bhagawath, DIG of Police, Eluru range, called for an integrated approach with all stakeholders to handle the complex problems of trafficking and child abuse, and said it could be possible only through bodies like the SPEWC.
Citing an instance wherein Narsapur Revenue Divisional Officer S. Venkatamaiah had closed down a brothel in Bhimavaram for six months by exercising his powers under the Immoral Trafficking Act, the DIG called upon the revenue officers to act in a similar manner in their capacity as executive magistrates and cooperate with the police in combating the proliferating incidence of women trafficking in the district. SP C. Ravi Varma also spoke.
Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/29/stories/2010052955500300.htm
Courtesy
The Hindu
Girl geek appeal: Women's movement online
Women may still be a minority in the technology industry but they are establishing strong support networks to stay connected.
An event at London’s recent Sci-Fi film festival was aimed at women and produced by women – with the aim of supporting female comic book artists and creators.
The presentation included an appearance by Judith Lewis of London Girl Geek Dinners, a not-for-profit organisation designed to bring together women with a personal or professional interest in technology.
The group meets regularly in various venues around London to network and listen to female speakers. Men can only attend if they are accompanied by a “girl geek”.
Global phenomena
Girl Geek Dinners has grown from a London-based gathering to groups all over the world including Australia, Canada, America and throughout Europe.
Similar organisations also host events designed to encourage women in technology.
Leslie Fishlock created Geek Girl Camp in the United States. Its projects include donating laptops to women in need and repairing old laptops to give to women returning to education.
However the organisation is best known for its boot camp – a full day of workshops covering all sorts of technology from social media, PC and Mac maintenance, podcasting and programming.
Most of the women who come the camps are like Ms Fishlock’s mother who is now in her seventies.
“Technology flew by her, it was not something she could go to school for, she didn’t work with it so did not have a lot of computer skills and all she wanted to do was make a spread sheet for her swim team,” Ms Fishlock told BBC News.
Tech-feminism
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 We’re not trying to be radical or disruptive, but to show that women have a place in technology  Judith Lewis
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It may sound like a classic case of feminism in action but the groups are cautious of the association.
“The feminist movement was incredibly important to people like my mum who had to argue with people like my programming teacher so that I could stay in my course,” explained Judith Lewis.
“To her the word feminist means something different. In a sense [Geek Girl Dinners] is a feminist movement as it aspires to a lot of the same ideals but I don’t want it to be seen as something that is feminist as this can be seen as something marginal or negative.
“We’re not trying to be radical or disruptive, but to show that women have a place in technology.”
Geek label
The term geek is also controversial. Some in the tech world are happy to embrace it while others find it insulting. How do women feel about being called a geek?
Julie Roads is one of the speakers at Girl Geek Camp
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Julie Roads works with Leslie Fishlock at the Geek Girl Camps as a speaker, blogger and tech evangelist. She thinks the term has positive connotations.
“It’s Geek Girl, not Geek Woman, it’s alliterative and it’s meant to be fun. Our logos are all pink and that is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. It’s friendly but it walks the line between the serious issues and gathering to have fun.”
Ms Fishlock also believes that it has been accepted by her group with good humour.
“Women may not be geeks but they want to be a geek girl.”
Judith Lewis feels that semantics can weigh the issue down.
“Often we get too wrapped up in the naming of things. We have striven to expand what people understand about what the word means and also to try to not make it such a negative word.”
Geek Girl initiative
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In organising meetings and social groups worldwide, these organisations cover a wide selection of cultural tastes, skills and ideas. The aim in all cases is to provide support and encouragement where it is most needed.
“The woman of the house should not have to say, I’ll wait for my son to come back from college to put songs on my iPod or fix my computer, it’s making those lessons available so they can do it themselves,” said Ms Fishlock.
“There are many resources online where they can go to learn. In schools, demand that your kids are learning more about technology, in your community, get involved in women in tech programs.”
Judith Lewis hopes that one day groups such as Girl Geek Dinners will no longer be necessary.
“It would be lovely in 20 years for Girl Geek Dinners to be completely pointless as it would be taken for granted that women work well in this sector. With men and women coming to talk about they’re doing and how rewarding it is not just to be a women in tech, but to be working in tech full stop.”
Reference Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8663593.st
Courtesy
BBC News
Differently-abled women undergo beautician course
In the three-month course, each trainee gets a monthly stipend of Rs.300
VOCATION:Differently-abled women undergoing a beautician course in Tiruchi.
TIRUCHI: The Department for Differently-abled Welfare has organised a beautician course for women who were orthopedically-challenged. The training programme is sure to ensure a decent vocation for them.
The three-month course covers facial bleach, eye-brows, manicure, mehendhi and bridal make-up.
“It is the bridal make-up which is an assured vocation for the trainees,” says M. Thilagavathy, the resource-person who imparts the training. Each trainee gets a monthly stipend of Rs.300. The programme also aims to instil confidence among the differently-abled persons. The demand for beauticians is on the rise, both in the urban and semi-urban areas. The training was imparted last year on a trial basis and it evoked an overwhelming response from the eligible trainees, says Ms. Thilagavathy.
Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/03/stories/2010050350530200.htm
Courtesy
The Hindu
Women scientists inspire students
Interaction:A former Young Scientist award winner addressing students and researchers at the Kerala Science Congress-Women Young Scientists’ Meet organised by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment in the city on Wednesday. –
Thiruvananthapuram, India: Dr. T. Girija, scientist at the College of Horticulture under the Kerala Agricultural University, was twice unlucky, but she has no regrets.
Participating in an interactive programme organised by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) here on Wednesday, the former Young Scientist award winner recalled how she had twice missed the bus to a foreign university for research.
“Once I had the opportunity to go to the U.K. for research but had to forgo the chance due to various compulsions. I completed my research at Bangalore instead. Family responsibilities prevented me from taking up a research assignment in the Netherlands at a later stage in my career,” said Dr. Girija who works on the phytochemistry of weed control. “My responsibilities as a mother held me back but I have no regrets. I derive satisfaction from my job.”
Women, she said, have a different approach to a problem. Unlike men, they look at the little things also which help them gain a different perspective.
As many as 26 women who were former winners of the Young Scientist award instituted by the Kerala Science Congress turned up for the programme organised by the Women Scientists’ Cell of the KSCSTE. Many of them recounted how family responsibilities and other compulsions prevented them from taking up higher studies and research abroad. But most felt that they faced no difficulties or discrimination in working with their male counterparts.
Dr. K.G. Thara, faculty head, Institute of Land and Disaster Management who won the Young Scientist award in 1993 for her paper on the origin of the Palakkad gap, said disaster management offered immense scope for women scientists. She stressed the need for women researchers to focus on recycling of waste materials.
Dr. Kamalakshan Kokkal, joint-director, KSCSTE, chaired the technical session. Dr. R.V.G. Menon and Planning Board member Mridul Eapen offered felicitations to the women scientists.
Climate change
Inaugurating the programme, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy called upon women scientists in Kerala to come forward to contribute to research on the impact of climate change, elimination of plastic waste and drinking water scarcity. She said the increase in the number of cancer cases in Kuttanad necessitated research to identify the cause.
Dr. K.R. Lekha, Head, Women Scientists’ Cell; Dr. Laly A. Pothan, winner of the Dr. S. Vasudev award, Kerala Science Congress – 2010; and Dr. P.G. Latha, scientist, Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute, were present.
Students from various schools and colleges also attended and interacted with the scientists.
Dr. Lekha said the day-long programme was organised with the objective of preparing a database on ‘ Women Achievers in Science in the State of Kerala.’ “The database will provide a platform for students to continue their interaction with the scientists. Thereby they develop a passion for science and are motivated to take up science as a challenging profession,” she said.
Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/22/stories/2010042261720300.htm
Courtesy
The Hindu
Belgium edges closer to veil ban
Belgium is on the path to becoming the first country in Europe to ban full-face veils worn by some Muslim women.
On a warm, sunny morning the Rue de Brabant just north of the centre of Brussels is busy with shoppers.
This city, known as the capital of Europe, is a multicultural melting pot and this part of town reflects that well.
It is particularly popular with the sizeable Moroccan and Turkish communities which, in turn, make up the bulk of Belgium’s half-a-million or so Muslim residents.
But now, with the Belgian parliament due to debate legislation proposing a ban, some are asking how far multiculturalism should go.
The new law, which enjoys cross party support, would outlaw clothing that obscures your identity – and that would include full face Islamic veils like the niqab or burka.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Green Party supports the measure.
Some have backed the legislation on the grounds of security, others that full face veils are a symbol of the oppression of women.
‘Freedom to choose’
But Green MP Stefaan van Hecke tells me there is a more fundamental argument, to do with culture.
“If you want good communication between all communities, and there are a lot in Brussels, it’s important that we see each other when we speak to each other. I think it’s very important to social contact.”
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 The niqab is a personal choice… Everyone should be able to express themselves Selma, Niqab wearer
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Not far from the parliament, in a small park, I meet Selma.
She is 22 and three years ago she converted to Islam. Now she wears a full-face niqab.
She is covered from head to foot, with just a small slit for her eyes. Even her hands are gloved.
If the new law is approved she could be fined or even arrested for dressing like this. And Selma says that is a threat to her rights.
“You have to realise that the niqab is a personal choice, at least in my particular case,” she says.
“Everyone should be free to express themselves the way they want, according to their conviction and religion, without having to abide by a law. But I’d be disappointed if in Europe we would not be free to do what we want.”
But in Belgium women like Selma are rare – she is one of perhaps only 30 women who wear full-face veils.
For the vast majority of Belgian Muslims, niqabs or burkas play no part in their tradition.
And on the streets of Brussels, opinion was divided as to whether this kind of law was actually needed. Some people we spoke to said they found women in full-face veils offensive or threatening. Others felt a law was the wrong way to go about things.
Culture clash
In fact laws like this one are already in place in a number of Belgian cities. This new legislation would apply to the whole country.
Other European nations – the French, Danes and Dutch for example – have considered similar laws, but Belgium would be the first European state to bring in such a ban.
Headscarves
And that has the vice-president of the Muslim Executive of Belgium, Isabelle Praile, worried about the precedent the country might be setting. “It’s an attack on democracy,” she says. “I find it a form of suppression against which I am opposed. If women really are being forced to wear the full veil then by forbidding them to go out in public you will end up locking them up even more in their houses.” This is a clash of cultures and values, each side claiming they are protecting the rights of others. But it will be a debate watched carefully by other European countries, weighing up whether they could follow Belgium’s lead. Reference Link Courtesy |
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