Our training of facilitators for youth and road safety workshops has officialy begun in Nairobi, Kenya. The venue for the training is the United Nations Office in Nairobi and the beautiful campus is a fantastic backdrop for the empowering training that will train a group of young people in road safety. The training will empower the young youth leaders to become great youth advocates and learn among others how to run their own workshops across Kenya.

YOURS has began its training of faciliators in Nairobi, Kenya which will last for two weeks. The training is an intensive course that will train 11 young Kenyans in the road safety field to become great youth advocates. They will gain skills and knowledge about the key risk-factors Speed, Helmets and Distracted Driving. In addition they will learn the art of facilitation, communication skills, and how to design and run youth and road safety workshops across Kenya. The training comes alongside our Youth and Road Safety Action Kit and falls under YOURS’ Capacity Development Pillar of operations.

The training is oritentated around four key learning outcomes:

1. Explain how road traffic injuries take place and what puts young people at particlular risk for road traffic injuries.
2. Identify key risk factos in your country and explain how they cancontribute to road traffic injuries.
3. Utilizise peer education and active learning methodlogies to design Youth and Road Safety Workshops to develop the capacities of young people in their country.
4. Organize and deliver Youth and Road Safety Workshops based on the Youth and Road Safety Action Kit.

In week one, the training of facilitators will undergo theory on road safety via interactive learning. This includes sessions of the scope of the road safet problem, youth and road traffic injuries in Kenya, how humans learn, the role of faciliators, peer education and a focus on road safety risk factors; speed, non-helmet use and distracted driving which are prevalent in Kenya.

YOURS thanks all sponsors and local partners. Especially we would like to thank the United Nations Environmental Programme for hosting the event and the Road Safety Fund for their sponsorship of the training! Stay tuned for more updates, videos, clips and testimonials from the training.

Brian, in his usual style gives us the latest in the field of youth and road safety initiatives in Africa! This month, Brian’s focus is on the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims and its commemoration across Africa. He observes that the day was wholeheartedly embraced across the region and he give us a synopsis of road safety action across Africa.

Hello! Bonjour! If you haven’t heard about it, you gotta check your pulse right now, because you may be dead! The date was Sunday, 18th November 2012. Yeah, we talk about ‘dates’ and you guys are already thinking of ‘dating’, ‘birthdays’…to some, ‘Christmas’…hahaha, I got you no? We are talking about the World Day for Remembrance of Road Traffic Victims. Ladies & gentlemen, Brian’s Column- your Africa update road safety column is here! Please be seated! I thank you…

For generations, I have not seen a day (except Christmas & Eid el Fitri) celebrated across Africa with soooo much solidarity, passion, flair, culture and modernity than the World Day for Remembrance of Road Traffic Victims! Yes…! You couldn’t miss the sight of regional/provincial/district traffic officers during the whole event. In fact, one would wonder why all of a sudden, we are finding it easier to persuade the government’s traffic department to actively participate in road safety activities. Could it be because African country governments want to show to the masses that they care considering that many countries will be voting their next presidents in a few years time? Wait a minute, or couldn’t it be that, the governments have seen the private sector partnering with the local advocacy NGOs on road safety to make our roads and road users safe?…something that is the work of our governments? Leave alone, the government talk! Let’s get to the core! Are you ready for your flights? Allons-y!

West Africa could be that region of the continent that could have won the most active-region award during the commemoration of World Day of Remembrance for Road traffic victims! The Gambian Youth through the National Youth Parliament among other activities took to the media and made a press release calling for everyone to be safe on the roads. Benin (Alignon), Niger (ONG Fondei Ma Bori), Mali (Mali Youth Association), Ivory coast (Fondation Djigui La Grande Esoerance) , Togo, Cameroun (Securoute Afrique) and Nigeria (Federal Road Safety Corps) have a track record of very active youth led organizations in road safety! You can visit their official websites for the news bulletins. Truthfully, they don’t surprise us for the awesome work they are doing! We can only say…keep the candle burning comrades!!!!!! Tres bien! Tres bien

Let’s go to Southern Africa!  As usual, South Africa and Namibia through the Namibian Road Safety Fund National Road Safety Council (Namibia) held the most attended to remembrance sessions. SAVE Zambia conducted an awareness session with young people deciding to act because they are the most vulnerable!

Coming to North Africa…Egypt’s youthful radio presenter and road safety advocate Mohhammen Yassin held a record of three-hour 4 public talk shows…which according to his page Road Safety in Egypt – أمان الطريق في مصر, reached out to 3500 people! Don’t you want to clap your hands for this 29 year old? In Ethiopia (another country where I’m going to be based for the next 1 year), young people in Addis Ababa under the Yala Youths Association used a cultural approach to awareness. They offered a free theatre-show that portrayed road safety victims as people who are our heroes and should motivate us for greater heights. The function was presided over by the provincial safety coordinator- a representative of the president in the province. Sudan held its first ever national road safety event by launching and freely airing the ‘Drive Safely’ movie directed and staring young women-something that has never happened before! This was calling for male drivers to be mindful and remember they have a family to take care of! What an event? Shukrannn to the Arab family and KIA motors! And for those who thought Somalia is only a battlefield, no thanks. Through the Mogadishu Youth Association and Mogadishu Metropolitan Traffic Police, a colourful ceremony was held to create awareness on keeping and observing the high way code on the now good looking city of Mogadishu! We can expect a lot from this country!

The flight tour ends in eastern Africa where Kenya Red Cross, YOURS-Kenya in partnership with the local traffic police conducted a safety drive along the busy streets of Nairobi! In Uganda, the Red Cross in Mbarara organized an awareness stakeholders meeting that was attended to by 122 delegates drawn from communication companies, NGOs and the government from western Uganda. This was an initiative to make the day more known to the stakeholders. In Tanzania, a group of students from University of Dar –es-salaam decided to re-paint a zebra crossing at their university. In Rwanda- the only country where a citizen can arrest a reckless driver, there was an awareness workshop in their Capital Kigali. The minister of transport was the guest of honor for the training workshop that attracted 222 delegates including motorcycle drivers associations. 

Clearly, you could see that more and more countries are beginning to realize the importance of ‘getting the road safety message to the community’ through various approaches of media, matches, cultural dances etc. That’s one area that has improved very fast. You also realize that, the implementing bodies have also begun to ‘partner’ with the road users, the government bodies and the private institutions! And most importantly, using the ‘peer’ approach in sending road safety messages home.

We (as Africa) are not perfect yet, in fact, there are still more gaps than they are in the mouth of a 90 year old, but we can keep our heads up considering the achievements that the continent is making. I didn’t forget to say that, a generation of young leaders in road safety is masterminding these road safety initiatives in Africa. Much respects to #YOURS But who won? I am not sorry for keeping you waiting to answer this question! Ha-ha…but as you know, one of the indicators of effectiveness of any intervention is the impact that it does and how sustainable it is. I am afraid we gonna have the results next year, same time…don’t kill me now!  (Waves) Until next time…#STAYSAFE

Every year, the World Day of Remembrace for Road Traffic Victims is signified through days of poignant activities to mark the tragic loss of lives on our roads all around the globe. In this article, we note one of our youth member’s achievements in bringing attention to this day and vowing to commit to road safety on all levels. The National Youth Parliament of the Gambia are featured here.

Mr Siaka Dibba is one of our most active members of the global youth network for road safety. Through his representative organization, The National Youth Parliament of the Gambia, Mr Dibba was instrumental in 2010’s World Crossing Campaign at YOURS and having submitted the best video in the global awareness campaign went on to run a massive national road safety effort in The Gambia supported by YOURS. On top this, Mr Dibba is a champion for youth rights in The Gambia and Africa as a whole and continues to fight relentlessly for youth and road safety issues in the region. 

We felt it a fitting tribute to the World Day of Remembrace for Road Traffic Victims which was commemorated on Sunday 18th November to reproduce Mr Dibba’s statement on the WDR which was given national circulation via The Point news outlet.

“Every year, since 2005, the 3rd Sunday of November is commemorated worldwide as the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. November 18 marks the 8th year. The theme for the 2012 commemoration of the occasion is “From Global Remembrance to Global Action across the Decade – Now is the time to learn from the past”.

This year’s theme is a combination of the motto for the first ever Decade of Action for Road Safety, launched by the UN and WHO in May 2011, and the specific theme for 2012 – now is the time to learn from the past.

It relates to the call in Pillar 1 of the Global Plan for the Decade for ongoing monitoring and evaluation, through relevant data system, of road danger, road crashes, and their causes and impacts.

It is a day of memory and mourning, as well as commitment at all levels. Wherever there is a cross or a wreath along our roads, it means that our efforts, despite the hard work, were not sufficient enough, that more could have been done and that more needs to be done.

Road Traffic victims deserve to be remembered and honored: they were our children, colleagues, beloved friends or next door neighbours. Their injuries and tragic deaths, in many instances avoidable, have created voids in our lives, stole our joy, denied us their invaluable contributions to national development and left families with never ending grief. We owe the injured, the hospitalised and the departed the obligation to make our roads safer. This is a clarion call that all must heed, and all must roll up our sleeves and build up results.

As young people and youth parliamentarians, we will actively continue to sensitize road users and intensify our advocacy work for better road, infrastructure and vehicle safety, and a reduction of key risk factors, such as drink driving and speeding, in order to minimize, and ultimately eliminate, road traffic crashes and victims.

We call on the Government to establish, as a matter of priority, a lead agency that would examine our road safety history and coordinate the effective implementation of our road safety policies and strategies. A zero tolerance for road traffic crashes will save more lives.

In conclusion, we also call on everyone, including religious leaders, to remember and pray for road traffic victims during their church services and Friday prayers.

Let’s make 2011-2020 a Decade to remember!”

As the youth movement continues gain momentum in Africa, over in Kenya, our Regional Coordinator for Africa Ms Sheila Atieno conducted a march in commemoration of the World Day of Remembrace. 

We continue to support this movement in Africa against the ever robust backdrop of action with the adoption of the African Youth Declaration for Road Safety (attached) and the launch of the Caravane Project.