Nidhi Tiwari Empowers Women Drivers

Nidhi Tiwari, an accomplished extreme terrain driver, believes that mobility is crucial for empowering women. She has achieved remarkable feats, including being the first Indian woman to drive from Delhi to London in 2015 and to the Pole of Cold in North Eastern Siberia in 2016. In 2015, she founded Women Beyond Boundaries (WBB), an organization focused on undertaking extreme overland journeys. Recently, Tiwari led a crew of five female drivers to Upper Mustang in Northern Nepal, becoming the first women drivers to reach Lo Manthang, the former capital of the Kingdom of Mustang. The challenging journey involved treacherous roads and off-road sections with difficult terrain, testing the skills of the city drivers in the team. Tiwari’s WBB workshops aim to make women self-sufficient in driving and emphasize the importance of self-maintenance, including tire repairs.

By breaking gender stereotypes in extreme terrain driving and expeditions, Tiwari’s initiatives raise critical questions about gender equality in these spaces. The expedition to Lo Manthang not only showcased their achievement as the first women to reach there but also highlighted the fact that they were the second set of Indian vehicles to accomplish the journey.
Re-reported from the article originally published in Mid-Day.