Wellington – ChangeMakers Refugee Forum is delighted to release their evaluation of Turning the Curve which helps women from a refugee background gain their driver’s licence.

Having a driver’s licence enables refugee background women to easily navigate around the city and visit others in their communities who may live in outer Wellington suburbs. It also opens up more job opportunities for women who need a licence as part of their work.

“This evaluation will help ChangeMakers Refugee Forum run our driving programme successfully, as well as report back on the programme’s effectiveness to our funders,” says ChangeMakers Chair, Ibrahim Omer. “We also believe it will enable us to find additional funding, so we can expand the programme and help even more refugee background women in Wellington gain their driver’s licences.”

The evaluation demonstrated that Turning the Curve is clearly achieving its intended outcomes. It also showed that additionally the refugee background women feel a sense of achievement, feel supported by the New Zealand community, and gaining their driver’s licence improves their self-confidence.

ChangeMakers has been running the programme in Wellington over the past six years, and has 72 women currently learning to drive. The programme was initially set up when women from refugee backgrounds in Porirua, Hutt and Wellington came together and identified getting their licence as their number one priority to help them settle into New Zealand life.

The programme itself happens through a unique combination of grants funding, volunteer driving mentors, paid lessons with driving instructors, and private sponsorship from Wellington women.

Allen + Clarke carried out the evaluation of the effectiveness of the driving programme as part of their pro-bono support programme.

“ChangeMakers should have confidence that they are providing something of value to former refugee women in Wellington, and that it is a worthy programme to continue, and to potentially develop in other regions of New Zealand,” says Matt Allen, Director of Allen and Clarke.”

The full evaluation can be downloaded here: https://goo.gl/vmkvSP

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