1.
Youth & Inclusive Citizenship:
Opportunities and Challenges in
India
Azad Foundation

2.
The context
• India is home to world’s second largest Population
( 1.2Billion)
• Population of women 614 million.
• Youthful nation with 0-25 of age makes 50% of total
population and 65% are below the age of 35.
• Close to 200 million women are subjected to violence.
• India has the lowest female participation rate, with
only 29% of women over the age of 15 working.
• The proportion of working women in urban areas has
increased from 11.9% in 2001 to 15.4% in 2011 (NSSO)

3.
Challenges for Young Women
• Access to education, in particular quality
education.
• Invisibility and lack of identity in families and
society at large.
• Unequal access to information, limiting the
dreams and vision.
• Breaking class, caste and gender based
discrimination.

4.
Azad Foundation: Livelihoods with
Dignity
• Azad Foundation was established in 2008 to work
on livelihoods with dignity for resource poor and
marginalized women.
• Azad Foundation works with young women to
train them to become professional chauffeurs
through our signature women on wheels (WoW)
programme.
• 6-8 month of training which include skills
development, Personal growth and Women’s
empowerment through 14 modules.

5.
Azad works on
• Young women’s right to earn remunerative livelihoods
with dignity and breaking gender stereotypes.
• Equipping them not just with technical skills but self
development and empowerment as a women.
• Some of the key focus areas are enhancing leadership
, choice based identity and sense of collective.
• Enhanced socio-political consciousness and
challenging processes that are disempowering for
women.
• Helping women to understand sexuality and
relationships, dealing with its complexities.

6.
Women
in
Action

7.
What have been achieved
• More then 100 women are empowered
chauffer's and principal bread winners in their
families.
• Socially visible, creating their own identity and
key decision makers in their families.
• Strong collective of young women who are
ready to support each other.
• Women drivers in public transport -
Reclaiming public spaces and making them
safe for women.

8.
The enablers for engaging with youth
for Inclusive citizenship
• Creating youth platforms where young women
can share views, seek information and be
exposed to a wide range of issues.
• Opportunities to connect with various other
networks , platforms, through learning journeys.
• Enabling community learning opportunities for
more women to engage with issues of citizenry
and rights.
• Active participation in various campaign such as
OBR , and 16 days activism and other social
movements.

9.
Role Young Women can play ….
• Take initiative in participating in various
platform.
• Share ideas , taking responsibilities to
implement them.
• Organize themselves and creating learning
environment.
• Challenging and changing stereotypes

10.
Role Young Women can play ….
• Take initiative in participating in various
platform.
• Share ideas , taking responsibilities to
implement them.
• Organize themselves and creating learning
environment.
• Challenging and changing stereotypes