In the bustling lanes and crowded junctions of Bengaluru, Project Shree on Wheels is doing much more than teaching women to drive—it is helping them claim space, voice, and visibility in a city where they were mostly passengers, not drivers. Designed for underprivileged women from the city’s peri‑urban neighbourhoods, the initiative gives them not just a licence, but the confidence to navigate public roads, public gaze, and their own futures on their own terms.
For Radha from Kengeri, buses and shared autos once defined the outer limit of her world. She had never imagined sitting behind the steering wheel of a car, let alone driving on highways packed with trucks and cabs. During the three‑month Shree on Wheels project, she learned to handle traffic, read road signs, and speak assertively to instructors and officials. The first time she drove her training car past the street where neighbours used to whisper about her “big dreams,” Radha rolled down the window and waved. Today she works as a company fleet driver, brings home a steady income, and says the biggest change is that her children now introduce her proudly as “our amma, the driver.”