DREAM PROJECT: The bubble is called decoration bubble and is created as part of the project to let people express their opinions and post it wherever they want.

JEDDAH: A postgraduate thesis on women driving in the Kingdom has turned into a massive campaign, leading to the launch of an online forum — www.n7nudrive.com — in which men and women openly discuss the issue.

The project — entitled “N7nu — We the Women” — is the brainchild of a 24-year-old Saudi woman studying design in the US. The woman, Areej, who does not wish to give her family name, said she was inspired to write a thesis on the subject, as her father, after retirement, would juggle his time in chauffeuring her, her mother and three sisters.

Areej said her father did this, as he felt responsible for the women folk of his family and did not want to rely on drivers. “I always felt guilty for few months that he used to drive me around. Driving four girls in one house is hard task. We had drivers quitting after becoming fed up by the amount of places we needed driving to,” she said.

Areej’s thesis, which started one year ago, is ongoing and something that she is passionate about. As part of her project, Areej has launched a website that has gained its own momentum. It is a place where differing views from both men and women, Saudis and non-Saudis, are being expressed openly and freely.

“N7nu — We the Women” is a nontraditional campaign that aims to raise the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia and to start a public debate,” she said.

She added that the project is being advertised on popular websites such as Flickr, Facebook, Google News and YouTube. “The ‘We the Women’ website links to them all,” she added.

Although there are no specific statistics on the number of people who are for or against women driving, most women believe it is their God-given right to drive. Other women, however, express their resentment at the idea, describing it as “difficult” and somehow “impossible at the moment.”

The project is called “N7nu — We the Woman” because it relies on women’s voices and opinions. “In the end, the main message behind the campaign isn’t coming from me or from an unknown higher voice ... it’s coming from the people themselves. This project is not mine ... it’s everyone’s,” Areej said.

The website is more of an online forum for dialogue and exchanging opinions. “Within a few days, the website has succeeded in attracting people from all over to express their views in Arabic and English,” she said.

“The issue or the idea of women not being able to drive in Saudi Arabia is something that people don’t talk about, although it is a pretty big deal,” she said. “We have a very complicated culture. It has become pretty big since I started the website; it’s grown fast.

“In the beginning, when I decided to adopt this as the subject of my thesis, I had to explain the idea for over five minutes to my colleagues (in the US). There is a lot of gap in our cultures and it was difficult to make people understand why the subject was such a big deal,” Areej added.

She has also filmed an advert with a woman driving. “The advert was shot in Oregon, but I had to make look like it was in Saudi,” she said.

“I want to get people to start talking about women driving. People are open to discussing the subject,” she added.