As you may now be aware, every so often, YOURS chooses a network member from our global youth network for road safety and puts their spotlight on the work for the world to see. When organizations submit detailed application forms with great information about their projects and work, we will spotlight them! This time, we put the spotlight on Voice Trust, India. Based in rural Tamil Nadu, this organization works to promote amongst other programs; road safety awareness and education, read about them here.

The mission of Voice Trust is to provide quality healthcare services and facilities for rural and indigenous communities, to promote wellness, to relieve suffering, to restore health, safety and provide a humanely consistent best service that they can give.

VOICE Trust has been targeting youths, parents, teachers and student communities in the Madurai disctrict and we intend to teach them about road safety, traffic sense, health issues and so forth. We intend to cover these groups to create awareness and recognition of the vulnerable position of young people in traffic in our contemporary society.

The Voice Trust’s Objectives include:

• To engage local communities in all social welfare programs for participatory development;
• To conduct Road Safety Education Programmes in Madurai and rural areas.
• To sensitize youths on contemprary challenges facing them and solutions to the challenges.
• To empower youths for self sufficiency and for endogenous development.
• To create awareness among youth on digital empowerment programs.
• To provide the community life supporting skills base for self reliance

An example of a recent project includes the Voice Trust’s Road Safety Education Program. The project was aimed at implementing at implementing a program aimed at the reduction of trauma on our road through the delivery of quality, evidence based road safety education programs among youth driving vehicles in Madurai City and students in educational institutions.

The Voice Trust intends to implement Road Safety Education Programs continuously for three months as an early intervention program that will set the scene for developing positive road safety attitudes and behaviour among youths and students in educational institutions.

They plan to involve local hospitals, Traffic Police Department personnel, teachers and women groups in the programs and make the activity a campaign against rash driving. The programs will open the eyes of youths and students on risk management and decision making traffic related situations and associated safety measures to be followed while driving.

Outcomes of the Activity:
District Police officials and reputed hospitals appreciated our programs. Schools also requested us to continue the program in view of the increase in accidents rates in Madurai City due to wrong depiction of youths riding bokes in advertisements, cinemas, televisions and media.

Birthdays need no explanation, they are celebrated in nearly every culture worldwide as an auspicious occasion. When you’re average youngster turns 25, they often get their friends together, have a party, drink some beers and cut a cake, but not Siaka K Dba but then Siaka is not your average 25 year old. He set a new precedent for socially conscious young people by dedicating his birthday to road safety. Read about it here.

Siaka K. Dibba is a Social Justice Activist from The Gambia who has great passion for Road Safety, Women and Children’s rights issues. 22nd February 2013 Siaka turns 25years. As an activist he chooses to celebrate his birth in a unique way.  

A birthday is a day when a person celebrates the anniversary of his or her birth; it marks an addition to ones age and celebrated in the form of party and gift giving. Well as he grew +1, he dedicated his silver jubilee to Road Safety.

More than 1000 young people die every day and thousands more are seriously injured. Every single act could contribute to reduce the statistics and make the world’s road safe. As a result of the above, Siaka raised a fund through friends/family and also his monthly earning to support crash victims at the Gambia Teaching Hospital-Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital Banjul. 

The social justice activist who is the Program Officer of National Youth Parliament of The Gambia and also an executive member of Your Change For a Change (YCFaC) on the 22nd February accompanied by musicians, youth leaders, hospital management and religious leaders visited Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital, Gambia’s #1 Hospital to meet road crash victims. During the visit the delegation had the opportunity to present gifts in the form of food items, pay hospital bills for those who could not afford them, pray for them, and learn their stories in terms of the impact of the road crash they have been involved in and also donated blood at the blood bank. 

Giving a Birthday a new face is a new initiative pioneered by Siaka K. Dibba in the Gambia and it is aimed at inspiring the younger generation into the work of charity and giving back to their communities. According to Siaka, he drew his inspiration from YCFaC (www.ycfac.org) a non-profit organization founded on the 06 day of April 2011 by a group of young individuals who are motivated to give back to their communities.  “This initiative is in line with the objectives of the organization that is inspiring the younger generation into the work of charity” he stated.

At the end of the visit, Siaka thanked God Almighty who have given him the strength, health and wisdom for the past years, his parents and entire family for supporting all throughout to raise to a responsible adult. Friends in The Gambia and outside denied themselves a family size pizza and a party to support this initiative. He called on all to drive with care, for the life saved could be theirs as well as that of other. He also informed the delegates about two new campaigns “Long Short Walk” which is a unique campaign calling for pedestrian safety across the world initiated by ‘Zenani Mandela Campaign and Road Safety Fund’ and the “Global Road Safety Film Festival” organised by LASER International in partnership with Youth For Road Safety. He encouraged them to come on board to participate for The Gambia, Africa and the world at large to save lives.

Do you want to celebrate your birthday in a more meaningful and productive way? If your answer is YES, then BIRTHDAY SPACE on Facebook is the space for you to join and let us know. We have a team with wealth of experience to help you organize, raise funds and do the logistics… Together we can! Your Little Change can Change the WORLD! Good idea? Would you do this for your birthday? Let us know!

The Global Road Safety Film Festival is the most celebrated and prestigious festival for road safety film makers in the world. This year, for the first time ever, LASER International have joined forces with YOURS to launch the Youth Category to the festival which is FREE for youth and road safety entries!

If you have created a video for road safety targeting young people or if you are a young filmmaker (or a group of young filmmakers) that have created a film for road safety, you can enter it into the LASER International Global Road Safety Film Festival 2013 for FREE!

So why not take advantage of this offer? Its easy to take part and you can find out all the information that you need here. Additionally, if your film is shortlisted, you will be invited to the festival and have the €50 entry free waivered (you must, however, cover your own travel and accomodation costs).

The winner will receive the prestigious LASER International trophy for the best in category and also receive a special €300 cash prize to spend on a local road safety project or film. There is still lots of time left to enter so get your films ready and send them in for free!

We think this a great opportunity for young people to showcase their filmmaking skills and we know there are lots of films out there, created by young people, tackling road safety that could receive this international acclaim. It is important to put youth and road safety issues on the agenda at such international events where governments, international organizations and other key road safety stakeholders submit videos for nomination.

For other categories of the festival, check out the festival website but please note, the entry fees will apply.

This year we have launched the youth edition of the Long Short Walk. So if you consider yourself an artsy type or if you love taking photos (both is even better), then this campaign is for you! All you have to do is download our board, either design it or not, write your message on it and take a picture.

The Long Short Walk is a unique campaign calling for pedestrian safety across the world. It has been initatied by the Zenani Mandela Campaign and the Road Safety Fund, which aims to capture ‘short walks’ in your community and collect these captures from around the world and combine it into one ‘long walk’.

Everybody travels to get to their destinations, whether to school, to work, to the shops or even travel just for the sake of walking. Unfortunately, some people’s walks are incredibly unsafe; unsafe footpaths, bad lighting and poor road discipline, The Long Short Walk wants to capture these images to illustrate the importance of a ‘Safe Walking’ and to prioritize this part of a new global Sustainable Development Goal. Implementing pedestrian safety measures is cost effective, and many of the solutions are simple. It can be introducing pavements (84% of roads surveyed by iRAP have no pedestrian provision); providing safe crossing points; ‘calming’ streets with traffic humps, rumble strips and chicanes; and lowering vehicle speed limits in areas where traffic and pedestrians share the road space.

After the great success of the Embrace Life Campaign, which engaged young people from over 50 countries, we know that young people around the world can unite for the common goal of road safety, this is why we are using the platform of the Long Short Walk to engage even more young people to unite for road safety and take part in our contribution to the campaign!

So what does it entail?
The Long Short Walk is a photo exhibition but YOURS has added a slight twist to get your creative juices flowing. Simply download our ‘I’m Walking For…’ board, add your own message, add some designs to it if you are arty and take a picture of you holding it. You can also take a picture of your walk (highlighting whether its safe or not) and send it to us. We will brand the photos, add it to a unique YOURS exhibition as well as sending it to the global campaign to where it will be showcased during the Second United Nations Road Safety Week.

As with all campaigns that we run, we have added a competitive element. The most creative photos will be awarded with a special prize (tbc). Simple as that. Want to take part? Click on the banner below and see more information.