Many 285 South readers clicked through to donate page for the program (thank you!). 

We are incredibly grateful,” said Sarah Karim, the executive director of the nonprofit which operates the program. “We’re starting up the Women Behind the Wheel program. It will move slowly, but at least we are up and running.”

Women Behind the Wheel, a one-of-a-kind program that provides free driving lessons to immigrant and refugee women in metro Atlanta, has paused those services due to a lack of funding. Students who had been taking lessons and those who were enrolled to start have been told to not expect any classes at the moment, said Sarah Karim, executive director of Ethaar, the nonprofit that runs the program.

The program, which I reported on in December for the Cost of Living Project, provides a vital service in metro Atlanta, where a single driving lesson can cost upwards of $100. In a region where accessible public transportation is virtually nonexistent, it’s been a lifeline for those who need to get on the road to start their lives here, but have limited income.  

“Sorry, we’ll have to pause it for now,” Karim says she had to tell students. “As soon as we get funding, you know, we’ll be sure to reach back out.

For now, Ethaar, which runs a range of programs to support newly arriving families in the region, has been able to connect driving instructors who have worked with Women Behind the Wheel with nonprofits like the Afghan American Alliance of Georgia, who have some funding to pay for their own students, Karim said. But Ethaar is not able to provide any free lessons as it did before.

Women Behind the Wheel has graduated more than 230 new drivers since it started in 2018. The organization has provided women, many of whom are newly arriving from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, with lessons taught by instructors who had previously been in their shoes: immigrants who are culturally sensitive and bilingual or multilingual. Students take anywhere from 10 to 14 hours of lessons, acquiring enough on-the-road experience to pass the road test and safely navigate metro Atlanta roads and highways. Ethaar pays $55 for each driving lesson, so enrolling one student in the course comes to a total of around $700.

Part of the reason for the drop in donations is that donors are tapped out from global crises, “whether it’s Gaza, Sudan, Congo,” Karim told 285 South; it’s getting harder to make the case to give locally. Since Ethaar is almost entirely funded by local community members, she said, it lacks the stability of bigger resettlement agencies that have secured federal and state grants.

Just a few weeks ago, the organization had to let go of its sole case worker, who supported newly arriving families in Clarkston. Earlier this month, Ethaar launched a fundraiser on Facebook, with the goal of raising $30,000. So far, they’ve raised just over $1,300. 

“Everyone has limited funds. When they think of giving, they’re probably thinking of Gaza, first and foremost. And that’s why we’re struggling,” Karim said. She understands, she added: “I am overwhelmed by all that’s happening in Gaza. So I imagine so is everyone else.”

Karim said she knows that Ethaar provides a critical service, and one that needs to be funded again: “I don’t know of any other nonprofit that does what we are doing.” She’s also applying for federal and state grants, and said that while it might take some time to get Women Behind the Wheel up and running again, she’s optimistic: “Right now we are struggling, but inshallah, we are still hopeful.”

To donate to Ethaar’s driving program, click here, and select “Women Behind the Wheel” from the dropdown menu.

The Cost of Living Project (CoL) is launching a new series on cars, driving, and transportation infrastructure: How do we get around in Atlanta? What does it cost us in terms of time and money? What would ease that burden? In the first story of the series, CoL explores a hurdle faced by people who migrate to the metro area from outside the U.S.: getting a driver’s license. Stay tuned for more and if you have an idea of a story you think should be covered, get in touch here.  

It's bright and early on a Saturday morning in November but Abubakar Adam, a driving instructor originally from Sudan, has already been awake for hours. He is sitting in the passenger’s seat of a white Toyota Corolla next to Randah, a mother of six who moved to Clarkston from Syria earlier this year. 

She is driving for the first time in her life. 

As Randah steers them through the quiet neighborhood streets of Stone Mountain, Adam gives simple directions in soft-spoken Arabic, his feet ready to press the brakes if needed. Randah’s teenage son sits in the back seat playing soccer video games on his mom’s phone. Her five other kids are home with her husband, who has a day off from his job at an Amazon warehouse. Randah’s husband wanted to teach her to drive himself, but since the family car lacks the passenger-side brake pedal that instructional vehicles have, he didn’t feel it was quite safe. 

Many of Adam’s students are similar to Randah: first-time women drivers who’ve recently arrived in the U.S., and who are dependent on their husbands’ work schedules to find the time for lessons. The Stone Mountain–based company that Adam cofounded with Babikir Moussa in 2012, Gore Driving School, helps offer a solution to the predicament. While providing regular lessons for a cost to anyone who wants them, Gore also contracts with the nonprofit Ethaar, which supports refugees and other underserved members of Georgia’s Muslim communities, to give driving lessons to women: Ethaar pays a discounted rate, and the women get the lessons for free. 

Though some other service organizations help connect refugee and immigrant clients to driving instruction on an ad hoc basis, Ethaar’s Women Behind the Wheel is a one-of-a-kind program in Atlanta—and it’s in high demand. In 2023 alone, 14 women have gotten driver’s licenses after completing lessons with the program, and 14 more are currently taking classes. Just behind them, 26 people have their names on a waiting list, where they could expect to spend up to three or four months.

“There’s always a wait list,” said Ethaar’s executive director, Sarah Karim. The program doesn’t have enough funding to pay for more instructors, and even if it did, finding the right teachers can be a challenge—the pool of instructors who are bilingual and culturally sensitive is small. Finding women instructors, which many women students prefer, is even harder. “We try to prioritize clients in dire need, like pregnant women having twins, women who have children with disabilities, or women who are the sole providers for their families,” Karim said. 

Meanwhile, there’s a clear need in the community. “Your life doesn’t start in the U.S. until you have reliable transportation,” said Shaista Amani, program manager at the Afghan American Alliance of Georgia, which supports newly arriving Afghan families in the Atlanta area. Many of the families Amani works with live in Clarkston, Stone Mountain, or Tucker—where walking to the grocery store or a doctor’s appointment is almost unthinkable, especially for people with small children in tow, given the major highways and lack of sidewalks. That’s why Amani has been trying to get a driving program up and running. In most of the families she works with, the husbands are the sole breadwinners. “Women are just stuck,” she said. “They don’t have childcare, they don’t have enough money to pay for driving lessons, and there are no jobs to work from home if you don’t speak English.”

As Randah drives down tree-lined streets less than a mile away from bustling Memorial Drive, she expresses a similar sentiment. “Everything is expensive,” she says in Arabic, with Adam translating. Gore Driving School’s typical rate is $130 for a two-hour lesson and $240 for four hours—costs comparable to those at other metro-area driving schools. Because learning to drive competently enough to pass the road test can take well beyond four hours, a full course of lessons can run to more than $600. For new arrivals often securing their first jobs at poultry plants or warehouses, paying that kind of money just isn’t possible.

Amani recently found some funding to provide driving lessons for members of the Afghan community, but with the high cost it’ll stretch only so far. She’s been calling around, so far unsuccessfully, trying to find driving schools that might offer the nonprofit a heavy discount, and is also hoping to raise money to support more lessons.

Adam’s driving school offers Ethaar a discount because, he said, he knows what it’s like to feel stranded in Atlanta. Most people didn’t drive in Sudan, which Adam left in 2008, he said: “Most people are the same as me, coming here. When I started learning to drive, it was a struggle to find someone to teach me.” He eventually found an instructor all the way out in Gwinnett County. 

The experience inspired him to open a driving school. “I wanted to help my community,” he said. 

As the two-hour lesson comes to an end, Adam navigates Randah back to her apartment in Clarkston. But it takes longer than expected. They hit a traffic jam outside Thriftown grocery store, where a free food drive has dozens of cars lined up down Indian Creek Road. After the delay, Randah drives back home. Adam gets into the driver seat and makes his way to another apartment complex to pick up his next student. 

285 South accompanied two women, originally from Afghanistan, who took and passed their driving permit tests in April, with the support of a Dari translator set up by the Georgia Department of Driver Services (GDDS).

"My hope is that I would be able to go to my doctor's appointment by myself and I could get groceries," said Aisha Amani, as she waited in line for a ticket number at GDDS’s Norcross location. She moved to Atlanta in February of 2022 from Kabul, and now lives in Loganville, where public transportation is virtually nonexistent.

Aisha, along with another woman from Afghanistan who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons, recently learned about the translator option through a 285 South report about barriers to driving many refugees and immigrants face in Metro Atlanta.

“I’m really happy [that] finally someone can help us…it was big news…they [students] are all very excited,” said Meena Khodayar, a driving permit teacher with the Refugee Women’s Network. She’s been helping prepare Dari speaking Afghan women to take the permit test in English, via a one hour zoom class five days a week. But after learning about the live translator option, she said there’s less of a need for the class. “Because we have an interpreter, it's way easier for them. Because they already know everything, they just need someone to translate it for them.”

Currently, GDDS does not offer the option to take the test in Dari (though it plans to eventually). It also doesn’t offer it in Ukrainian. For the hundreds of Afghans and Ukrainians who have arrived in Atlanta within the last two years, having a live translator support with the permit test removes a major barrier to their mobility in Atlanta.

But the information about the translator option is difficult to find on the GDDS website or in any of its public communications.

“They need to visit the DDS Center where they’d like to test at and request to arrange an appointment for a translator and the Team will fill out the necessary paperwork and schedule the appointment for them,” said a GDDS spokesperson. “The middle of the week during the middle of the day is the best time to visit,” she added.

In 2022, GDDS received at least 75 requests for live translators, of which a minimum of five were for Dari translators.

Shaista Amani, Aisha’s daughter, never realized a live translator was an option until 285 South’s reporting on the issue. Once she established contact with the relevant person at GDDS, the process to set it up was relatively straightforward. That GDDS employee coordinated with the manager of the Norcross branch to set up the Dari translator for the women.

So far, Shaista has brought eight women in to take their permit tests with the support of a Dari translator at the Norcross location. They’ve all passed.

Her mother has been ready to take the test for awhile. “She knows all the rules…the road signs. She has memorized it like she's reading the Holy Quran,” she said laughing.

In Kabul, Aisha, a single mother, lived alone in an apartment and was self sufficient, moving around the city in buses or taxis. “She never asked anyone for help,” said Shaista. “In Afghanistan, she was doing everything by herself. But there the bus routes were very easy to catch, and the taxis were very cheap, and she spoke the language.”

Since Aisha’s been in Georgia, she’s been mostly at home, taking care of her grandson or cooking. She’s grateful for the peace and safety here, but wants to feel more independent. “Gwinnett County is very bad with public transportation,” said Shaista. “The grocery shops are not at a walking distance. She can’t walk to the doctor’s [office].”

“I’m not used to getting help,” said Aisha in Dari, with her daughter interpreting for her. “In Kabul I was so independent, that’s why I don’t like to be dependent on someone else here.”

When Aisha emerged from the permit test booth in Norcross, she had a serene, proud look on her face. “It was easy,” she said.

UPDATE: On August 28th, 2023, a Georgia Department of Driver Services spokesperson told 285 South that the permit test began to be offered in Dari in July 2023.

The development comes six weeks after 285 South published a story highlighting the obstacles many Ukrainians and Afghans face getting their licenses in Georgia.

Those who speak Ukrainian and Dari have to learn English before being able to take the permit test. Currently, the knowledge, or permit test, is offered in English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Farsi.

There are accommodations GDDS says it can make to set up a live translator for those who don’t speak any of the languages on the list, by connecting with the manager at a specific DDS office. For Shaista Amani, Social Adjustment and Leadership Program Manager at the Refugee Women’s Network, that process hasn’t been straightforward.

"It is like a dream come true for me, I can't imagine how many lives this will change,” said Amani, after learning of GDDS’s plans to add Dari to list of language options.

Over the last four years, Amani says she has written several emails to different people at GDDS to raise her concerns about the language barriers, but until a few weeks ago, was never able to connect with the right person.

“For Afghans who come to the US, it may take several years to learn English and then finally be able to get their driver's permit,” she said.

“Being an Afghan woman, I understand what it means to be able to drive and become independent in your life. Also, through my years of experience with refugee and immigrant communities, I have seen how families have suffered due to lack of transportation and language barriers in different situations.”

“This change means hundreds of women being able to become independent in their lives, seek employment without any transportation barrier, stand for themselves and being able to drive around, explore the world, see what is out there which can change their lives, and see how they can make a change outside of their home.”

The Georgia Department of Driver Services (GDDS) does offer the permit test, called the Knowledge Test, in over a dozen languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese. In September, DDS added Farsi, in response to requests from the community, a spokesperson said in an email statement. 19,555 Knowledge Tests were provided in a language other than English in 2022, according to GDDS.

For the road test, DDS specifies that drivers must be able to “read and understand simple English.” 

Over 1,000 Ukrainians have moved to Georgia in the last six months, and over 1,500 Afghans have arrived here since August 2021. Amani says many of the families she’s been supporting from Ukraine and Afghanistan, only speak Ukrainian, Pashto, or Dari, none of which are on the list of DDS languages.

Around one third of Ukrainians in Ukraine speak Russian (which is on the list), and many Dari-speaking Afghans can read Farsi, which is also offered as an option, but Amani says the languages are not interchangeable.

“To get the permit, they have to learn English. How long does it take for an adult to learn a whole new language?” It can take awhile. And in the sprawling suburbs of Atlanta where public transportation is limited, not being able to drive impacts where people find employment, or whether they can find employment they can actually travel to, at all.  

Amani says she’s tried reaching out to the Department of Driver Services, but hasn’t had success identifying or connecting with the relevant person at the agency. “I have been begging for [more] languages, but it never happened. I don’t know who I should reach out to.”

In response to 285 South’s questions, a DDS spokesperson said in an email that the agency “monitors customer concerns with taking the Knowledge Test and any ADA claims.”  And that if “DDS becomes aware of new needs regarding a customer in which English is not their first language, we seek immediate resolutions to overcome the challenge to serve that customer while not compromising the safety of the overall motoring public.”  

For those who don’t speak any of the languages on the list - there is another option - according to DDS. They can ask for a translator and arrange to take the Knowledge Test orally. “Anyone needing translator services would make prior arrangements with the Center Manager where they are going to be tested,” said the DDS spokesperson.

Amani said she wasn’t aware that taking the Knowledge Test orally was a possibility. She’s never been able to actually talk to a DDS manager on the phone. “There were so many times they said a manager will call you back, but they never did.”

So RWN has been developing workarounds. The organization began offering an online class in October, where a teacher talks through the permit questions and translates them into Dari and Pashto. When the students are ready, RWN schedules a time for the students to go to DDS and all take their permit tests - in English - at the same time. But the program isn’t scalable, says Amani, “We are a small organization so don’t have that much funding to support other languages.”

The permit test consists of 40 multiple choice questions. Translating those into an additional language requires resources. “Professional translation services are procured for exam translation services,” said the DDS spokesperson. “There are also costs associated with technical programming to the Driver’s License System to add an additional language.”

Driving and getting around the metro area is a challenge for many foreign born Georgia residents, especially for those who are banned from applying for a license because they don’t have legal residency documents. A coalition of advocacy groups led an effort to expand driver license access through House Bill 833 in 2021, but the initiative hasn’t been able to garner enough support to move forward.