New Delhi: Women in the Workforce: In the last few years, India has emerged as one of the booming places for women’s empowerment. Here is a profile of inspiring female car drivers, taxi drivers and farmers who has set examples for other women.
Inspirational Female Driver: Ankita Shah into workforce
Thirty-five-year-old Ankita Shah has become Ahmedabad’s first specially-abled rickshaw driver. Breaking all gender stereotypes and social norms, Ankita decided to enter this male field and got into the workforce. Ankita avoided working at a call center and drove an auto-rickshaw for six months to donate to her father’s bowel cancer treatment.
Speaking to the media, Ankita Shah said, “I was just a year old when I lost my right leg due to polio. It had to be amputated. I was lucky that my family encouraged me to finish a bachelor’s degree in economics and make something of myself.
The world, in general, was not that encouraging.” Ankita migrated from her hometown in Palitana to Ahmedabad in 2009 in search of employment. While looking for work, Ankita faced many rejections. This was because she was not fluent in English, she was from a small town, but mainly because of her prosthetic limb.
Inspirational Female Taxi Driver: G Uma into workforce
Several women cut ties, claiming that women face disparity and discrimination. One of the women who stand independently and proves a lot of people and their minds wrong is G Uma. Uma is a taxi driver and believes the biggest stereotype she has overcome in her ten years in the business is that women just can’t drive or support their families.
Uma had to leave Kolar ten years ago and has since become a successful taxi driver who is liked by her passengers and respected by her co-workers. This women claims that when her father’s eyesight failed, her mother took control of the household. She said her brother assisted her in learning to drive and her father supported her.
Uma’s brother, a truck driver, died in a car accident six years ago, just a week after he applied for the KSRTC job. She explained that he also made himself a uniform. Her current ambition is to become a KSRTC driver. She wore the uniform and told her mother that her son is still alive! Uma also wants to start a driving school for orphaned girls
Inspiring Farmer: Papammal into workforce
The 2021 Padma Shri awardee’s work begins at dawn – tending to her 2.5-acre farm in Coimbatore’s Thekkampatti village. At the age of 105, she is argued to be the oldest farmer still active in the field. She is regarded as a pioneer in the agriculture field. Also, this women is affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University’s department of education.
