For many adult Australians driving a car is second nature, but for some newer to the country it is completely foreign.
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The NRMA staged their first workshop to teach recently resettled Syrian and Iraqi refugees about car maintenance in Wollongong.
The new initiative aims to give these people the skills to drive a car and get themselves out of trouble if something goes wrong.
“Some of them have had licences in the countries they’ve come from,, some haven’t,” said NRMA senior manager of motoring education Venera Owens.
“The aim is to help new Australians integrate into the community and being the [vast] country that we are, having access to a car is very important.”
She said the group was being trained in English literacy skills at the Navitas English Humanitarian Settlement Services on Auburn Street with driving instruction and other car related learning from the NRMA.
NRMA patrols John Diab and Bassam Elakhras both speak Arabic and delivered the My First Car workshop to 11 refugees, focusing on what’s under the bonnet and how to look after it.
Maria Bekerggian, 33, moved here with her husband last August in search of better opportunities and a “happier” life.
Mrs Bekerggian has never held a licence before, nor owned a car. But she is determined to eventually get her full licence to live a better life.
Ms Owens said the project is seeking more volunteers to help the refugees “brush up” on their English skills or get behind the wheel to help them achieve their required Learner hours.
“All the statistics show the more time you spend behind the wheel as a learner, the safer that you are,” she said.
In 2016 Wollongong accepted hundreds more refugees under the federal government’s temporarily-expanded resettlement program.
The My First Car workshop will also travel to Fairfield to assist Sydney’s new immigrants. Anyone keen to volunteer should visit www.mynrma.com.au/about/refugee-learner-driver-program.htm to register their interest.