Teaching refugee women to drive goes farther than their destination

STEENBERG, Ga. — In a large, empty parking lot outside Atlanta, a car slowly circled the parking spaces. From the passenger seat, driving instructor Nancy Gobran peered over large sunglasses at her student, a 30-year-old Syrian refugee woman who was driving for one of the first times in her life.

“Turn the wheel and accelerate,” Gobran, the owner of Safety Driving School, said softly in Arabic. Holding the steering wheel tightly, the student carefully drove around the corners of the parking lot for almost an hour.

Gobran has been working for almost five years with a program called Women Behind the Wheel, which provides 14 hours of free driver training to mostly refugee and immigrant women. Many of the women who register come from countries that discourage women from driving or working outside the home.

It’s not a new concept, but Women Behind the Wheel is unique to Georgia. Similar programs exist across the country, such as Refugee Women Rising in Omaha, Nebraska, which provides driver training, seat belts, and car seat installation assistance, and Driving Opportunity in Denver, which provides classroom and on-road instruction to refugee women.

“Helping many refugees is not easy,” Gobran said. “It’s a little difficult at first for some people when they first get behind the wheel, but by the end of the program they got the benefit they were looking for.”

Students apply for the driving program through Ethaar, an Atlanta-area nonprofit that helps refugee families resettle. The name is an Arabic word meaning altruism and affection.

Ethaar co-founder Mona Megahed said she started Women Behind the Wheel to fill a glaring need for many refugee families that stems in part from cultural differences.

“We didn’t call it Women Behind the Wheel for nothing,” says Megahed. “We really wanted to empower our female customers. Many of these women were struggling because they were completely dependent on their husbands.”

She noted that some husbands from their home countries believed their wives should not drive or work.

“We quickly explained that you can’t really provide if you’re making minimum wage and have six mouths to feed on top of helping your wife,” Megahed said. “So she also has to learn to drive a little bit, get a job and get out there.”

The stress could be exacerbated for families in metro Atlanta, where many people rely on cars to get around. Most of the refugee families Ethaar works with settle in Clarkston, a suburb 15 miles northeast of Atlanta.

“Most of the time, due to the lack of access to transportation, it is difficult for them to go to work,” said Sarah Karim, executive director of Ethaar. “It is difficult for them to study anywhere other than nearby, and unfortunately there are not that many options.”

Their clientele depends on the changing global landscape and conflicts, Karim said.

“Recently, we have observed diverse nationalities among our clients, including families and individuals from Afghanistan, Burma, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and Eritrea,” Karim said.

To date, there have been 230 graduates of the program, including several men. Due to high demand, the riding program typically has a three- to four-month waiting list. The U.S. government provides refugee families with up to 12 months of financial and medical assistance, so there is limited time to become autonomous.

“It’s about every refugee achieving self-sufficiency or self-reliance,” said Dorian Crosby, a professor at Spelman College and an expert on refugee migration.

“Learning to drive and accessing a driver’s license is critical for refugee women to achieve that level of self-reliance,” Crosby said. “It is not just to comply with the government regulations of the lockdown, but they are now self-sustaining. It’s also such an emotional boost.”

Instructors like Gobran speak Arabic fluently, which makes students feel more comfortable. She watched her client slowly gain confidence during her hour-long session. A smile crossed her face. A month later, her student passed her driving test.

“This is their new home and they need to understand how this country works,” Gobran said. “It starts with the smallest thing: building a future.”