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STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — In a big, empty parking zone outdoors Atlanta, one automotive slowly careened round parking areas. From the passenger seat, driving teacher Nancy Gobran peered over massive sun shades at her scholar, a 30-year-old Syrian refugee lady who was driving for one of many first instances in her life.
“Flip the wheel after which speed up,” Gobran, the proprietor of Security Driving College, mentioned softly in Arabic. Gripping the wheel tightly, the scholar cautiously rounded the corners of the parking zone for almost an hour.
Gobran has been working for almost 5 years with a program referred to as Girls Behind the Wheel, which affords 14 hours of free drivers’ training to largely refugee and immigrant ladies. Lots of the ladies who enroll come from international locations that discourage ladies from driving or working outdoors their dwelling.
It is not a brand new idea, however Girls Behind the Wheel is exclusive to Georgia. Comparable packages exist throughout the nation, reminiscent of Refugee Girls Rising in Omaha, Nebraska, which affords driver’s training, seat belt security and automotive seat set up assist, and Driving Alternative in Denver, which affords classroom and highway instruction to refugee ladies.
“Serving to lots of refugees will not be simple,” Gobran mentioned. “Originally, it’s type of awkward for some folks for his or her first time being behind the wheel, however by the tip of this system, they gained the profit they’ve been searching for.”
College students join the driving program by way of Ethaar, an Atlanta-area nonprofit group that aids refugee households by way of their resettlement. Its identify is an Arabic phrase that means altruism and affection.
Ethaar co-founder Mona Megahed mentioned she began Girls Behind the Wheel to fill a obtrusive want many refugee households have that partially stem from cultural variations.
“We named it Girls Behind the Wheel for a purpose,” Megahed mentioned. “We actually needed to empower our feminine purchasers. Lots of these ladies have been struggling as a result of they have been absolutely depending on their spouses.”
She famous some husbands held beliefs from their dwelling international locations that their wives shouldn’t drive or work.
“We shortly defined, effectively, you’ll be able to’t actually present if you happen to’re making minimal wage and you’ve got six mouths to feed along with serving to along with your spouse,” Megahed mentioned. “So she additionally must type of learn to drive and discover a job and get on the market.”
The stress might be compounded for households in metro Atlanta, the place many individuals depend on automobiles to get round. Many of the refugee households Ethaar works with settle in Clarkston, a suburb 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.
“More often than not due to lack of entry to transportation, it’s onerous for them to get to their jobs,” mentioned Sarah Karim, Ethaar’s govt director. “It’s onerous for them to go examine anyplace apart from what’s shut by, and there aren’t that many choices, sadly.”
Their clientele is determined by the shifting international panorama and conflicts, Karim mentioned.
“Currently, we’ve noticed varied nationalities amongst our purchasers, together with households and people from Afghanistan, Burma, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and Eritrea,” Karim mentioned.
Thus far, there have been 230 graduates of this system, together with a couple of males. The driving program usually has a three-to-four-month waitlist due to the demand. The U.S. authorities offers refugee households as much as 12 months of economic and medical help, so there’s restricted time to change into autonomous.
“The purpose is for each refugee to succeed in self-sufficiency or self-reliance,” mentioned Dorian Crosby, a Spelman School professor who’s an knowledgeable in refugee migration.
“Studying how you can drive and having access to a license is important to refugee ladies reaching that degree of self-reliance,” Crosby mentioned. “It’s not simply to satisfy the federal government rules of the cutoff, however they now can maintain themselves. It’s also such an emotional enhance.”
Instructors like Gobran are fluent in Arabic, which makes college students extra comfy. She watched her shopper slowly achieve confidence over her hourlong session. A smile crept throughout her face. A month later, her scholar handed her driving take a look at.
“That is their new dwelling, and so they have to grasp how this nation works,” Gobran mentioned. “It begins with the little or no factor as driving to construct a future.”
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