1 month ago
By SHARON JOHNSON
Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) — In a large, quiet parking batch extracurricular Atlanta, 1 car slow careened astir parking spaces. From nan rider seat, driving coach Nancy Gobran peered complete ample sunglasses astatine her student, a 30-year-old Syrian exile female who was driving for 1 of nan first times successful her life.
“Turn nan instrumentality and past accelerate,” Gobran, nan proprietor of Safety Driving School, said softly successful Arabic. Gripping nan instrumentality tightly, nan student cautiously rounded nan corners of nan parking batch for astir an hour.
Gobran has been moving for astir 5 years pinch a programme called Women Behind nan Wheel, which offers 14 hours of free drivers’ acquisition to mostly exile and migrant women. Many of nan women who enroll travel from countries that discourage women from driving aliases moving extracurricular their home.
It’s not a caller concept, but Women Behind nan Wheel is unsocial to Georgia. Similar programs beryllium crossed nan country, specified arsenic Refugee Women Rising successful Omaha, Nebraska, which offers driver’s education, spot loop information and car spot installation help, and Driving Opportunity successful Denver, which offers schoolroom and roadworthy instruction to exile women.
“Helping a batch of refugees is not easy,” Gobran said. “At nan beginning, it’s benignant of awkward for immoderate group for their first clip being down nan wheel, but by nan extremity of nan program, they gained nan use they’ve been looking for.”
Students motion up for nan driving programme done Ethaar, an Atlanta-area nonprofit statement that immunodeficiency exile families done their resettlement. Its sanction is an Arabic connection meaning altruism and affection.
Ethaar co-founder Mona Megahed said she started Women Behind nan Wheel to capable a glaring request galore exile families person that partially stem from taste differences.
“We named it Women Behind nan Wheel for a reason,” Megahed said. “We really wanted to empower our female clients. A batch of these women were struggling because they were afloat limited connected their spouses.”
She noted immoderate husbands held beliefs from their location countries that their wives shouldn’t thrust aliases work.
“We quickly explained, well, you can’t really supply if you’re making minimum costs and you person six mouths to provender successful summation to helping pinch your wife,” Megahed said. “So she besides needs to benignant of study really to thrust and find a occupation and get retired there.”
The accent tin beryllium compounded for families in metro Atlanta, wherever galore group trust connected cars to get around. Most of nan exile families Ethaar useful pinch settee successful Clarkston, a suburb 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.
“Most of nan clip because of deficiency of entree to transportation, it’s difficult for them to get to their jobs,” said Sarah Karim, Ethaar’s executive director. “It’s difficult for them to spell study anyplace isolated from for what is adjacent by, and location aren’t that galore options, unfortunately.”
Their clientele depends connected nan shifting world scenery and conflicts, Karim said.
“Lately, we’ve observed various nationalities among our clients, including families and individuals from Afghanistan, Burma, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, and Eritrea,” Karim said.
So far, location person been 230 graduates of nan program, including a fewer men. The driving programme typically has a three-to-four-month waitlist because of nan demand. The U.S. authorities gives exile families up to 12 months of financial and aesculapian assistance, truthful location is constricted clip to go autonomous.
“The constituent is for each exile to scope self-sufficiency aliases self-reliance,” said Dorian Crosby, a Spelman College professor who is an master successful exile migration.
“Learning really to thrust and getting entree to a licence is captious to exile women reaching that level of self-reliance,” Crosby said. “It’s not conscionable to meet nan authorities regulations of nan cutoff, but they now tin prolong themselves. It is besides specified an affectional boost.”
Instructors for illustration Gobran are fluent successful Arabic, which makes students much comfortable. She watched her customer slow summation assurance complete her hourlong session. A grin crept crossed her face. A period later, her student passed her driving test.
“This is their caller home, and they person to understand really this state works,” Gobran said. “It starts pinch nan very small point arsenic driving to build a future.”
