Travelling to English classes. Commuting to job interviews. Travelling to church, the mosque, or social events.

As a young refugee in regional Australia, being able to drive can mean the difference between successfully settling into a new community or finding yourself isolated. That's quite a different story to settling in cities, where public transport is more available and affordable.

But if your parents don't have a licence themselves, finding someone to help you reach your required 100+ hours of driving before going for a test can be challenging.

That's one thing Afghan refugee Rahila Abdul Hadi has found since moving to the Queensland city of Toowoomba with her family in 2014.

"Only my sister drives and she's on her P-plates, so she can't drive me," says 18-year-old Rahila, a Year 12 student who aspires to work in politics.

From getting to work to attending university, driving a car is a necessity for many young refugees in regional Australia. Some are turning to volunteer driving instructors to practise their driving skills. ( Supplied: Braking the Cycle )

Her single mum lacks the English language skills to get her own drivers licence, and her two brothers don't drive.

"There are times where I have to go for a meeting or something and my sister was not free to drop me, so I have to call around and ask my friends to actually help me," says Rahila.

"It's also very expensive to go to driving school — it's sixty-something dollars per hour."

The local pastor helping refugees of all faiths get their licence

For Rahila, the answer has been the help of long-time local, 59-year-old Ross Savill.

Ross, the pastor at a local church, volunteered his own time to teach Rahila to drive.

"Ross helped me a lot," Rahila says. "Ross himself, he actually took me driving a lot. And then he introduced some people who also helped."

Ross and his team of church volunteers, including a retired driving instructor, regularly help refugee and migrant youth build up their hours behind the wheel so they can take their provisional driving tests. The church offers driving and volunteer services to refugee and migrant youth regardless of their faith.

"It is really important for them and their independence," says Ross. "It makes such a difference for them and their families — it just opens up a whole lot of stuff at their convenience, rather than trying to rely on public transport."

Many families can afford some lessons for young people who want to drive, but covering the full cost of the 100-hour driving requirement for learner drivers in Queensland is financially unviable for most.

As Ross puts it: "That's six grand to get a licence."

Ross Savill and his team of volunteers at HumeRidge Church of Christ in Toowoomba regularly help refugee and migrant youth build up their hours behind the wheel so they can take their driving tests. ( ABC Life: Juliette Steen )

'No funded program'

Driving lessons aren't part of the humanitarian settlement support package provided to refugees once they arrive in Australia, and there is no national, consistently funded program that just offers free driving programs. So it's often up to volunteer programs to fill this need, says David Barton, who works for Mercy Community, which offers outreach services to migrants, refugees and other communities in need.

"This has been a problem for humanitarian refugees coming here for the past 25 years," says Mr Barton.

Plugging that gap is a patchwork of state government-funded services, including a slew of volunteer-staffed services across the country.

As well as faith-based services, programs such as L2P in Victoria, Braking the Cycle in Queensland, St Vincent de Paul in Toowoomba and Youthsafe in NSW offer free driving lessons in some regional areas.

Some are funded by state-based transport safety commissions in an attempt to bolster road safety among refugee and migrant communities.

"If there were more [funding from the federal government,] it would be wonderful," says Ross.

"Certainly it's one of those things that makes a huge difference in terms of settling into the community."

Opportunities to work

Brothers Amjad and Nawaf came to Australia in late 2018 as part of Australia's intake of Yazidi refugees, after fleeing persecution from Islamic State in northern Iraq.

After settling In Armidale, in NSW's Northern Tablelands, one of the first things they did when they arrived was get their drivers licence — acquiring their required 100 logbook hours through help from an employment agency, local Australians and the local Yazidi community.

The brothers' ability to drive has allowed them independence — and for driver and mechanic Nawaf, 33, it has also opened up the variety of jobs he can apply for.

"For now, I just want to do any work with driving because I love it so much," says Nawaf, speaking through a Kurdish Kurmanji interpreter.

Having a drivers licence is also a necessity, adds Nawaf, "because wherever we go they ask for our licence" as a form of identification.

There is no national, consistently funded program that just offers free driving programs — so it's often up to volunteer and state-funded programs, such as Braking the Cycle in Queensland, to fill this need. ( Supplied: Braking the Cycle )

Amjad and Nawaf's decision to pursue a drivers licence soon after their arrival is not unusual, says Jock Collins, a University of Technology Sydney professor of social economics researching settlement outcomes of refugee families in Australia.

"It's one of the first things [many refugees] want to do … because public transport is particularly bad in regional towns," he says.

He explains that one area of business open to refugees, with "low barriers to entry", is food delivery and rideshare driving, so "having a licence opens up opportunities for employment".

Angela Watts, state manager at Braking the Cycle in Queensland, says many jobs now require a licence, especially in trades.

"And for people living in rural and remote locations, they're restricted in what jobs they can apply for based on distance," she adds.

Not driving can also limit access to education beyond school for regional people.

"Quite often it can be an hour minimum drive to the closest uni," says Ms Watts, "and there's very limited public transport or none at all."

In Rahila's case, having a licence means being able to drive to her part-time job at a hardware business, and later attend university, where she plans to study law.

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Overcoming social isolation

Social isolation is a significant challenge faced by refugees in regional Australia, and that's exacerbated by not having a car.

"From a social inclusion point of view … not having a licence means they can't access friends, family, doctors, anything like that — so having a licence allows them to remain connected to their community," says Ms Watts.

Women, in particular those with young children, can face social isolation because they are less likely than men in the family to be working, and may therefore not have daily contact with the wider community, says Ross.

"A lot of them can't drive, they don't have licences or they don't have vehicles, so finding ways to overcome the barriers is really important," he adds.

"For the older women in the community, particularly when they don't have husbands as their husbands have been killed, for them to get their licence is just massive. They sometimes have grown up in cultures where they weren't even allowed an education, and for them to get their licence is just a massive step."

Ross's Toowoomba church offers buses that pick up and drop off attendees to the English classes it runs, including weekend classes targeted towards mums, as a way of overcoming the transportation challenge.

But helping refugees get their own licence is important, says Ross.

"It's a slow process but it's an important process, because it's another step towards independence."

For Afghan refugee Rahila Abdul Hadi, being able to drive means being able to get to school, youth group, her part-time job and social events. ( ABC Life: Juliette Steen )

For Amjad, the importance of learning how to drive has inspired him to pay it forward: He is now offering unofficial interpreting assistance to help other community members complete their hours, through the employment agency that helped him learn to drive.

As for Rahila, she just passed her test in mid-June.

"I feel very good because now I'm becoming independent; wherever I want to go, I can drive easily myself. It actually will make life very easy for me and for my family," she says.

"On Saturday, I'm taking one of the instructors from the church, who helped me a lot with driving, for a coffee. So probably that will be my first drive."

Travel and accommodation costs for this story were covered by funding from the Michael Gordon Social Justice Fellowship, administered through the Melbourne Press Club.