In our mission to promote youth and road safety issues across the world, a new member of the team comes aboard at YOURS with a specific and robust mission to embed youth into the forthcoming Post-2015 Development Agenda. Aakash Shah is young, passionate and talented young man who has previously worked closely on the MY World survey in India and continues to make strides for youth involvement in road safety. He joins YOURS’ global team in a Global Ambassador position to bring awareness to the road safety crisis facing youth on an international platform.
In the build up to the defining of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, YOURS and its network have been involved in a range of consultation processes to ensure youth and road safety issues are brought to the table as a serious threat to youth development. We met Aakash Shah recently via the #SaveKidsLives Campaign and he impressed everyone at YOURS through his passion an commitment as well as his ability to mobilize youth in India. He joins YOURS as a Global Ambassador for the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
His role will include working on a high-level platform to represent YOURS at foremost events propagating the road safety goals, to update the global network on the progress of SDG’s and mainly road safety, continue to promote the #SaveKidsLives campaign all across the world with youth, as well as working with us to formulate strategies for the implementation of SDG’s once the agenda is set.
In a statement he said,
“Being aware of the detrimental effects of road crashes all around the world and the way it is affecting every nation as a whole, I always wanted to work in the field of road safety on a global platform”.
Working with youth across India, Aakash was able to gather over 30,000 signatures for the #SaveKidsLives campaign. Aakash is a resident of Pune,India. This 19 year old is currently studying Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Maeer’s MIT institution. Recognized as the “Terrific Teen’ by Times of India , at the age of 16, he founded a city based youth organisation, ‘Action for Pune Development’ with 63 like-minded youngsters. The main aim of the organisation is to involve young people in various developmental issues like road safety , environment, cleanliness, education etc. and within a period of 3 years, the organisation reached over 53,000 youngsters across the city.
He’s a dedicated Road Safety advocate and has worked very closely with young people in India. He has played a key role in creating awareness on use of helmets , seat-belts , pedestrian safety etc. along with government organisations , civil society groups , youth organisations , educational institutes etc. In 2013, he was given special recognition by the Deputy Commissioner of Pune Traffic Police for creating road safety awareness in the city.
In May 2014 , he was given the post of the Global Youth Advocate for UN My World 2015 and World We Want Campaign by United Nations Millennium Campaign.As a global youth advocate , he planned a very effectual gratis strategy for reaching out maximum young people across India for My World and World We Want Survey. The strategy included collaborating with Technical Book Publisher , Collaborating with education institutes , newspapers , radio channels etc. Along with a team of 63 ambassadors, he reached out to over half a million people with My World Survey and stood 3rd to reach maximum people across the world.
For this outstanding work , he was awarded with UN My World Innovations Award during the UN General Assembly in 2014 by the hands of Ms.Zoleka Mandela. Aakash is also now a member of the Policy Strategy Group , United Nations World We Want.
“As a result of our collaboration, we will reach out to thousands of youth across the world and together solve the unacceptable issue of deaths and disabilities due to road crashes world-wide. I am all geared up for this task and eagerly waiting to start working on our future projects”. – Aakash Shah – YOURS Global Ambassador: Post-2015 Agenda
Floor Lieshout, Director at YOURS said, “YOURS believes in strong youth empowerment and involvement in road safety. We as youth have the passion, energy and commitment to reach out to our peers as ambassadors and role models for road safety. We are excited to have Aakash on board as he works with us for a road safety target in the Post-2015 Development Agenda”
You can expect some news and articles coming from Aakash in the coming weeks and months!