If you asked Rotana Tarabzouni in 2011 about the protests to end Saudi Arabia's ban on female drivers, she would have cynically called the cause hopeless.

Now, two years after the first campaign, the Saudi-raised, California-based singer is optimistic that change is coming to her home country.

On Saturday, women in Saudi Arabia will get behind the wheel and take to the streets — an act of defiance against the country's policies blocking female drivers. While there's no formal law banning women from driving, the conservative nation's unwillingness to grant licenses to female applicants has become a de facto way of barring women from legally operating cars.

Tarabzouni, a graduate student at the University of Southern California, has leant her voice to the cause this time around. She's posted a cover of Lorde's "Team" on YouTube in support of the protesters.

"Saudi women have never been this loud or this brave," she told Mashable. "They're breaking so many barriers, and I've been so inspired."

Saturday's planned protest is the latest incarnation of a movement that began in 2011, when Manal al-Sherif was arrested after she posted a video of herself driving online. After her arrest and eventual release, many Saudi women protested the ban by driving their own cars.

Tarabzouni said she went from skeptic to supporter in just a matter of months. She lived in Saudi Arabia in 2011, and she didn't believe a simple rebellion could change the status quo.

She moved to California in January to study communications but dreamt of pursuing a music career. She always had a passion for singing but was discouraged from following it in Saudi Arabia, where singing is seen as a second-class career and going against religion, she explained.

When she learned of Saudi women achieving once-unheard of feats - taking seats in the kingdom's advisory body and even climbing Mount Everest - she decided her musical dreams were possible.

While Tarabzouni's thousands of miles away from the protesters in Saudi Arabia, she identifies with the women back home.

"We're both chasing these forbidden dreams," she said. "I feel we're both running full charge toward the future."

The protest's official website encourages Saudi men to teach women how to drive and asks supporters to hang the campaign's logo in their cars' windows.

But some women are not waiting until the weekend to protest.

Earlier this month, Eman Al Nafjan, a prominent Saudi Arabian blogger, posted a video of an anonymous Saudi woman driving. During her highway excursion, children and men in passing cars give her supportive thumbs up.

Tarabzouni is thrilled to see women starting early, and she hopes the one-day event becomes an ongoing rebellion.

"We need to stand up for our rights every day," she said. "That's what the Saudi females have taught me. It's a snail-like pace, but you have to try. The girls who come after us have to know that we at least tried."

The protest has gathered attention on social media, adopting a new hashtag, #Oct26Driving, and reviving 2011's, #Women2Drive. Women and men from across the world have begun posting their support.

It's a woman's right to drive - and to dance. Shyrine from the Ramallah Ballet Center #women2drive #oct26driving pic.twitter.com/0B58z0TPXb — Speed Sisters Film (@speedsisterfilm) October 15, 2013

#Oct26Driving , to show my support I will learn how to drive stick shift today :) ,Vamo arriba Mujeres pic.twitter.com/fom9WxeujU — Esme Lopez (@EsmeLopez1) October 21, 2013

Today women R educated, empowered, will continue to ask for their right to drive. The wheels R turning no more going back #WOMEN2DRIVE — madeha al ajroush (@madehaAlajrous) October 11, 2013

Mother says she has no urge to drive, but on 26 October she will sit in the driver's seat to support the ladies that do want to #women2drive — Raf (@RFatani) October 10, 2013

Image: Youtube, Eman Alnafjan