Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety Youth Leadership Board members Thiago Gruner (Brazil) and Alison Collard de Beaufort will join global delegates in the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum 2022. During the Forum, youth leaders from around the world will have the opportunity to engage with government representatives, youth delegates, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders.

Raising awareness on road safety and its relation to the SDGs
During the Forum, youth will be able to contribute to the review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the shaping of policy recommendations at the High-Level Political Forum, and other Intergovernmental forums such as the UN Transforming Education Summit, the UN Ocean Conference, the Financing for Development (FfD) Forum, and more. 

Members of the Youth Coalition will talk about road safety and how it connects with the rest of the SDGs, focusing on SDG 5: Gender and Equality and SDG 4: Quality Education. These two areas are discussed through the Policy Briefs created by the Youth Coalition’s SDG Champions.

The Youth Coalition representatives will touch on how gender and education are connected with transport and mobility issues, highlighting that both should be considered to ensure the safety and protection of women, children, students, and other vulnerable road users. 

Sharing the Youth Coalition’s Policy Briefs 
Guided by a Fact Sheet produced by the Youth Coalition, the representatives will also be guided on how to engage decision-makers and other stakeholders to lobby for the meaningful involvement of young people in all stages of decision-making, policymaking, and project management. 

Apart from the Fact Sheet, the Youth Coalition representatives will also be guided by some of our Policy Briefs. The first one is the SDG 5 Policy Brief on Gender Equality and Road Safety and the second is the soon-to-be-launched Brief on SDG 4: Education. 

The latest Brief will be launched this week, 20 April at 5 pm CET, through an Instagram LIVE in the Youth Coalition’s account. The session will explore the relationship between road safety and quality education, focusing on ensuring the safe journeys of students to and from school. These points will be raised and emphasized during sessions throughout the ECOSOC Youth Forum. 

If you want to find out more, join our Instagram LIVE happening this Wednesday. See you there!

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM

Last week, April 8, YOURS – Youth for Road Safety Communications Manager Maolin Macatangay joined the AIP Foundation in their Head’s Up webinar series focused on youth participation in road safety. The session sought to share information, knowledge, and tools around youth and road safety as well as discuss and disseminate good practices when it comes to youth engagement at local, regional, and global levels.

Empowering youth through the Youth Coalition 
During her intervention, Mao talked about the tangible efforts YOURS continues to apply to meaningfully engage and involve young people. She first highlighted the organization’s vision of seeing a world where no young person dies on the world’s roads. For this, she emphasized how young people needed to be included in all levels of policymaking, decision-making, and project management.

She cites the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety as one of YOURS’ key projects that bring together the services of the organization in terms of providing young people with resources, capacity development, partnership opportunities, and a platform to unite.

The Youth Coalition currently has over 900 members from 104 countries worldwide. Through the Youth Coalition, youth leaders are able to receive funding, mentorship, capacity development opportunities, and access to partners in order to implement road safety projects through its Local Actions initiative.

Mao invited the different stakeholders and participants to start trusting young people and seeing them more as partners rather than beneficiaries. “YOURS – Youth for Road Safety continuously works to create a world where young people do not die on the world’s roads. The best way to do this is to meaningfully engage and involve young people in all stages of project management and decision-making. We believe that young people have the abilities, commitment, and passion to energize the road safety movement across the world. It’s time we see young people not just as victims of road crashes but as assets who can help end the senseless loss of lives on the roads.”

AIP Head’s Up session
The AIP Foundation Head’s Up campaign is a call for students from different regions in Southeast Asia to get involved in promoting the campaign culture among young motorbike drivers.

In Asia, motorbikes are one of the most popular modes of transport for young people. Through the campaign, AIP Foundation wants to ensure the safety of young people who often use motorbikes as modes of transport.

The campaign is looking to raise awareness on how motorbike helmets protect the wearer’s head from severe forms of traumatic brain injuries. This is supported by the data explaining how data reduces the risk of head injury by at least 45%, brain injury by 33%, facial injury by 27%, and fatal injuries by 29%.

Mr. Greig Craft, President of FIA Region II (Asia Pacific) shared, “as countries in the developing world continue to experience rapid economic shifts and turn to motorized mobilization, road crashes will continue to harm our innocent people, especially children and young adults. Substandard helmets – which offer zero head protection – continue to plague our local markets, killing and maiming our loved ones. This is as unethical as selling fake medicines. Through the efforts of organizations like AIP Foundation, FIA and FIA Foundation, the world is understanding that there are solutions.”

MORE ABOUT THE HEAD’S UP CAMPAIGN

4 April 2022 – YOURS – Youth for Road Safety through the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety has launched its latest art campaign called the #ClaimingOurSpace campaign. The campaign will use art and other forms of creative expression to capture the voices of young people in road safety and highlight why they should be meaningfully engaged when it comes to matters around road safety and sustainable mobility.

Youth claiming their space 
Young people from around the world are claiming their space within the global road safety community and as part of the global agenda in preparation for the High-Level Meeting on Road Safety happening in New York this June 2022. Road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 29. Despite this,  youth are rarely included in decision-making and project management efforts to address these issues. 

YOURS and the Youth Coalition are firm believers in the power of young people to lead change and energize the road safety movement. The #ClaimingOurSpace campaign will enable young people to show local and global leaders the energy, creativity, and solutions youth can offer to help solve the road safety crisis.

“When it comes to road safety, as youth, we are now officially recognized as stakeholders in the Global Plan for the Decade of Action. The next step is to start seeing this implemented in real life, on a country and city-level. I would like to see my peers taking part in this campaign to show decision-makers that we are ready to join forces. I invite you to support us in echoing our message!” – Sana’a Khasawneh, member of the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety.

Art and road safety
The #ClaimingOourSpace campaign will be divided into two phases. The first will take place from the 4th to the 15th of April and will be a call for action for young people to get involved by sending in a power pose and a message for local and global leaders. 

The campaign invites members to send in a “power pose” to show that they are rising to the challenge of addressing global road safety issues that affect them and their peers. The pose shows that they are claiming their space and are demanding to be included in efforts to curb road crashes, locally and globally. 

Last week, 9 March, Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety member Kenneth Mulinde joined an official side event during the African Youth SDG Summit, Africa’s largest youth forum on the Sustainable Development Goals. The event was hosted by the United Nations Road Safety Fund (UNRSF). The session was all about the projects the different organizations were implementing to ensure safe and sustainable mobility within their countries and sectors.

Representative organizations
The panel was composed of diverse speakers from the African region. The panelists include Bunmi Papoola-Mordi from TotalEnergies Nigeria, Claire Louise Sterngold from the YE! Community, Damiilola Olokesusi from Shuttlers, Rick Rapa Thomson from SafeBoda, and Kenneth Mulinde from the Youth Coalition. 

The different speakers touched on different opportunities for young people around entrepreneurship and road safety. During his opening statement, Jean Todt from the United Nations Special Envoy for Road Safety explained how road safety enables opportunities for young people. “Youth Entrepreneurs for Road Safety by the International Trade Center and the United Nations Road Safety Fund is an innovative way for youth to improve road safety using business solutions”. 

Nneka Henry shared how TotalEnergies are providing young leaders with similar opportunities through Start Upper, a project that supports young African Entrepreneurs in the creation of innovative startups to create positive impacts in their communities.

Art, youth, and road safety
During his intervention, Kenneth talked about how art can be used to mobilize and energize the youth movement for road safety.  To emphasize this point, Kenny shared how the Youth Coalition engages young people around the world through art and other creative mediums. For instance, one of the Youth Coalition campaigns, the Art for Road Safety challenge, used street art and dance to raise awareness around road safety and mobility issues in Africa. 

He also discussed how he and his team from Youth Arts Movement Uganda implements his Local Actions project “Be Road Smart” utilizes art to highlight the road safety situation African women face when they commute and take public transport. “Art is used to communicate messages and to break down theories and literature. We turn these messages into images. At the Youth Coalition, art and creativity have been at the center of our programs”

Check out the full panel by watching the session!

WATCH AFRICAN SDG YOUTH SUMMIT SIDE EVENT

Earlier this year, the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety announced a call for proposals for Local Actions 2022. The call invited members of the Youth Coalition to short-term or mid-term grassroots action plants that are oriented to address the most pressing road safety issues in their areas. The Youth Coalition received over sixty Local Actions applications. Through a rigorous and competitive process, the selection committee behind the initiative was able to select seventeen projects to support and fund for the year 2022. We are pleased to present our Winners and their projects! 

Brian Ssemwanga: Safer roads in Hasselt and Diebenbeek now
Brian is 31 years old and is a student at Hasselt University doing a Master of Science in Transportation sciences. He has a background in Transport and Logistics Management with 7 years of experience in Heavy trucks mechanics. His project, Safer roads in Hasselt and Diebenbeek now, aims to improve the safety of students who cycle and walk to academic institutions in Hasselt and Diepenbeek.

Ana Rodriguez: Retorno Seguro a la Escuela
Ana is an architect, urban planner, and urban activist. She led the movement of La Banqueta se Respeta where she promoted the citizen initiative of the Accessibility and Mobility Law for the state of Nuevo León. Her project, Retorno Seguro a la Escuela or the Safe Return to Schools Challenge consolidates the efforts from the 2021 Local Actions Project; Safe Return to School Program. 

Ezequiel Naidich: No te Disgraigas 
Ezequiel is 23 years old and is currently finishing his studies in International Relations. He has been an informal educator for the last six years. He currently works with Asociación MiNU as the Education and Road Safety Coordinator. His project, #NoTeDistraigas or #Don’tGetDistracted focuses on raising awareness against distracted driving. 

Atieno Agutu: Community partnership for safe walking and cycling in Kisumu
Atieno is a transport specialist with training from Hasselt University in Belgium, where she studied Transportation Sciences under a fully-funded scholarship from VLIR-UOS. She specialized in Road Safety in Low-and Middle-Income Countries and Transport Policy and Planning. Her project, Community Partnership for Safe Walking & Cycling in Kisumu, is a community mobilization and awareness project that takes the approach of community groups locally known as “chamas”.

Dilshod Kholmatov: Hey, I’m moving on two wheels
Dilshod is a member of the “Young generation of Tajikistan”. He was a semi-professional road and mountain bike cyclist and has traveled to many places by bicycle. He currently works as the manager’s assistant in road safety and post-crash response projects. The project seeks to encourage the Dushanbe authorities to promote cycling as an official policy. Bicycles provide time-saving transportation that significantly increases access to income, health, and education.

Laura Daniela Gómez: Meaningful cycling actions with a gender approach
Daniela lives in Bogotá, Colombia. She is 27 years old and has a degree in Political Science and postgraduate studies in Public Management. She works as a Project Manager in Despacio, promoting safer and more sustainable mobility. Besides her job, she also works for her community and currently serves as a member of the Local and City Bicycle Board. The project seeks to develop and encourage meaningful actions to raise awareness on the relevance of improving road safety conditions with a gender approach.

Henrique Soares Ribeiro Sant’anna de Oliveira: Coleti.VU 2.0
Henrique is a volunteer at Fundação Thiago Gonzaga – Vida Urgente, one of the biggest road safety NGOs in Brazil. He takes part in youth mobilization and organization roles. Coleti.VU 2.0 is a new approach for youth in Brazil to increase and grow participation around main concerns regarding road safety for young people. It is based on the combination of political activism that engages with local authorities and the mobilization of young peers for practical actions in their own communities.

Shagun Sharma: Clean India for road safety 
Shagun is based in Delhi, India. By profession, she works with Sattva Consulting engaging in impact consulting with nonprofits in India and APAC. Her project will involve art, community mobilization and awareness, peer-to-peer engagement, and advocacy to use their existing work at the intersection of waste management, climate change, and Road Safety for engaging in evidence-based campaigning and advocacy for the cause.

Hemant Tiwari: Safe roads in Surkhet, Nepal
Hemant is a transport engineer who has been working in transport planning, traffic engineering, and road safety since 2011. He leads a youth-led NGO named Safe & Sustainable Travel Nepal (SSTN) which focuses on sustainable and safe transportation systems through research, awareness, capacity building, and advocacy. His project will focus on capacity building on safer road infrastructure along with RSA among technical, bureaucratic, and political leaders at central, provincial, and local government.

Vania Emmanuela: Strapped Helmet Community 
Vania is a 23-year-old Medical Student (Clinical Year) at the Faculty of Medicine, Padjadjaran University, Indonesia. She and her team are part of CARS Unpad: Center for Youth Actions on Road Safety Unpad. Motorcycles are the main choice of transportation in her city. The project seeks to address the concern to appropriate stakeholders to discuss the installation of additional CCTV in order to detect violations of helmet usage.

Shehab Abou Zeid: Art for Vulnerable Road Users 
Shehab is from Egypt and currently works as a program manager of the Nada Foundation for Safer Egyptian Roads. His background is in political sciences, specializing in political theory. His goal is to achieve lasting social change through the process of empowerment, helping people to gain more control over their own lives within the Egyptian context. The project brief is to engage the young generation in the Road Safety Movement by occupying the walls of one of the places where young people gather, such as universities, Social or Sports clubs Graffiti Drawing.

Nikita Luthfi Adriyana: Bike to School
Nikita is an undergraduate second-year student of the Faculty of Medicine at Padjadjaran University. She is currently an active member of Center for Youth Action Road Safety (CARS) Unpad which aims to help improve and expand our mission in sharing about road safety, especially for youths. The project “Bike To School” emerged from the CARS Unpad members’ concern about the increasing number of underage drivers, specifically motorcycle riders at the junior high school level, who often aren’t old enough to legally have a driver’s license.

El Khalil Cherif: Youth Acting for Zero Road Fatalities in Morocco 
El Khalil is a researcher at Instituto Superior Técnico. He has a PhD in Environment, Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System and recently a Master in Sustainable Ocean Blue Economy for Environment Diplomacy from the University of Trieste. The project aims to develop an advocacy toolkit for decision-makers in Morocco to achieve meaningful youth involvement to impact the future of SAFE and SUSTAINABLE mobility. The toolkit is intended for entities at the decision-making table like the Ministry of Transport.

Pankhuri Jain: Community Connect 2 
Pankhuri holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science. She is currently the Program Coordinator for the Community Connect vertical at the Blue Ribbon Movement. Community Connect is a leadership program that encourages youth to engage in active citizenship by addressing local civic issues. It aims to educate young people with awareness about civic issues especially around road safety so that they can work with local decision-makers to improve the civic facilities of the community.

Kenneth Mulinde: Live Roads 
Kenny is a creative activist and is the team leader at Youth Arts Movement Uganda. He currently works as the Creative Activism Inspirator with Action Aid International Uganda, and a youth advocate Above All. Live Roads will be realized in Apac district-Northern Uganda, to build upon the success of the #BeRoadSmartUG campaign, a local actions winning project 2021, that has promoted women’s rights and road safety in Kampala, using creative activism to raise awareness on women’s rights and safe mobility.

Tendekayi Marapara: Safer School Zones Zimbabwe 
Tendekayi was a delegate of the 2nd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety. He is Civil Engineer and is a certified Youth Star who can use the Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) Methodology developed by the International Road Assessment Programme (iRap). The initiative will serve as a pilot project for safer school zones in Zimbabwe, at a local primary school, incorporating the application of Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) Methodology.

Simon Patrick Obi: Advocacy for Safe Road Safety and Youthful Involvement 
Simon Patrick Obi is the Founder and the Executive Director for GreenLight Initiative, a youth-led and leading road safety organization in Africa. His project involves advocacy for road safety and youthful involvement in Nigeria. The project seeks to organize high-level policy dialogues on road safety; push for youth involvement, and advocate for the implementation of 30km/hr speed reduction in streets and high-risk areas where road users especially youths mixed with traffic.

Check out our page for more details and updates! 

VISIT OUR LOCAL ACTIONS PAGE 

Last Tuesday, March 8, YOURS – Youth for Road Safety Communications Manager, Maolin Macatangay, joined the International Transport Forum (ITF) panel on Women and Road Safety to answer the question of whether we are on track to meet SDG Target 3.6: reducing the number of road-related deaths and injuries by the year 2030.

Meeting SDG Target 3.6 
The panel focused on including the gender perspective in efforts to meet the goal of reducing road-related deaths and injuries by 2030. The subject fits into the theme of the 2022 ITF Summit, Transport for Inclusive Societies, focusing on the Ministerial Roundtable happening this 19th May. The inputs from the panel will also be lobbied by global ministers during the High-Level Meeting on Road Safety happening in New York this July 2022. 

Lotte Brondum from the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, Nneka Henry from the United Nations Road Safety Fund (UNRSF), Sirma Boshnakova from the Allianz Partners, Kate Barnes from TIER mobility, and Maolin Macatangay from YOURS – Youth for Road Safety made up the panel.

Each talked about their organization and what they were doing to meet the target as well as what efforts they are undertaking to ensure that transport and mobility are safe and accessible for women. The panel also talked about the messages they would like to pass onto high-level ministers, policymakers, and decision-makers, emphasizing the importance of having and involving more women in the transport sector.

Road safety as a youth and gender issue 
During their interventions, the panelists discussed how the transport system often overlooks the needs of girls and women around the world. During her intervention, Lotte notes that this is often because different sectors are not included in the decision-making and project planning stages. “Women, youth, and members of our community must be involved in all stages of transport planning.

Maolin emphasized how road safety and sustainable mobility are youth and gender issues by highlighting the everyday experiences of young people. 

“As a young person myself who doesn’t own a car and as also someone who lives in a low-to-middle-income country, I’ve experienced mobility in a different way. I’ve experienced what it’s like to commute and ride overloaded busses because I wanted to get home, I’ve experienced pollution because I had to walk from one place to the other, and, as a woman, I’ve felt unease when I went home at night.” – Mao Macatangay 

She also talked about the importance of having youth and women represented within the transport sector to ensure that their needs are met. She also touched on the Policy Brief on SDG 5: Gender Equality released by the Youth Coalition which links road safety with gender. 

ACCESS THE POLICY BRIEF ON GENDER AND EQUALITY