Brian, our regular columnist from Uganda is back for another year to talk about all things road safety in Africa. In this column, he focuses on places road safety as a new year resolution and being conscious of being safe so as you can continue to bring in many more new years to come!
Hello fellow young people! How’re you doing?! I should have known it! You must be just recovering from the Christmas and New Year’s break; the time where you must have spent some quality time with your families and loved ones: and we all love doing that, don’t we? We all like being, as Chris Daughtry says in his HOME song, ‘in a place where love is always enough for me…plus, it costs nothing’! But, shh, #BriansColumn is back!
It’s already a new year, unless you are following the Ethiopian-type-of-calendar: – but world over, a lot of people have welcomed 2014 already! Yippy! But, exactly, what does this mean to us, as young people? Clearly, we’ve added another year to our already many tallies of our age! That sounds a little mean, but I don’t need to remind anyone about their “Keeping Their Dreams Alive”. It’s that part of the year, where we sit cross-legged and begin to state our ambitions and expectations for the New Year! Many of us could be:
- Well, you know, planning to buy our sexy, first and fast car!
- Ahhh, planning to have our own families? With kids running around, or seeing the kids go to school for their first day?
- Planning a road safety project for your peers or local community, I don’t know!
- Let me see, planning on starting a new international volunteer experience?
- How about starting/finishing your course at college, university, primary or secondary school?
- Or just, may be, having a good time with your friends, and only you knows the rest!
The good news however, is that, we can only achieve our dreams only if we’re ALIVE! This brings me back to where it all started, ‘Is #roadsafety and your personal safety for that matter, part of your new year’s resolutions?
We often don’t ‘plan’ to stay alive or make a resolution about it but choosing to actively commit to road safety can really make a big difference to our lives by keeping us and those around us safe!
Lets take this personal, shall we? Do you plan to commit to all of the following in the New Year?
Does any of the above, make any sense to you, regarding what you should shop for, as you embark on the New Year? As one of the participants in the last concluded YOURS Road Safety workshop for young people in Nairobi, Kenya said, and I quote, “There is no good excuse for one not to put on a helmet. They don’t need to have wipers like a cash dashboard; neither do they need to be air conditioned! It’s a choice, and we have the choice to make. And its my safety, oursafety!” Check out a video about it in the right column!
Wishing everyone (from Mombasa-Kenya to Equatorial Guinea, Cairo-Egypt to Cape of Good Hope-South Africa) and the whole YOURS global family, a safe year as we chase after our dreams!
Twitter: @BrianBilalK1