While Brian’s bi-weekly blog is not due just yet, Brian recently informed us of a tragic loss of life of a young man in his homeland of Uganda. The story holds importance for us as Mr Willington Taremwa was only 27 years of age and was tragically killed in a road crash on his 27th birthday. The story has receieved national coverage and we feature one of those articles here today at YOURS.

This is a sad story told by a group of friends, Mai Gad, Maria Hyttel, Wycliff Kansiime, Zach Liao and Marianne Tellier.

It is about Willington Taremwa, a university student and an employee of Reproductive Health Uganda who was hit by a car while riding on a Boda-boda and left to die on his birthday. Willington Taremwa had a lot of potential. A hard-working university student of population studies and a successful employee for several years with Reproductive Health Uganda as a counsellor, Willington had a bright future ahead.

In addition, Willington, known by his friends as “Will”, was a warm, caring, funny person, a huge support to his colleagues, friends, and family, and held in the highest regard by those that were lucky to know him. December 11, 2010 was Will’s 27th birthday. That day he was studying at Makerere University for one of the last exams necessary to get his degree, as well as preparing a reproductive health youth camp he was coordinating on a voluntary basis.

He was not planning to have a birthday party, as he wanted to save his energy for the challenges of the coming week. Little did he know that his friends had prepared a surprise birthday for him! Sadly, he never found out.

Will left Makerere around 9pm and got on a Boda-boda (motorcycle taxi). On the way, a car hit the Boda. Will flew off the bike to the side of the road. Here the evening’s first tragedy played out: The boda boda and car driver simply took off. Will was rendered unconscious by the fall and must have appeared dead. Thus ensued the second tragedy: Instead of helping him to the hospital or contacting someone from his phone, the passers-by proceeded to take his valuables, as well as all forms of identification, which were essentially of no value to them, but would prove priceless to Will.

Eventually a policeman found him and took him to Mulago hospital. Will slipped in and out of consciousness. As he did not have identification on him, no one knew who he was or whom to contact. The third tragedy sealed his fate: There was no one there to help him fight for his life. At some point he remembered a family address, which he incoherently communicated, but apparently they did not want to or did not have the resources to investigate at that time of night.

Although his injuries were likely treatable, as he was often unconscious and unable to push the doctors to attend to him, he probably did not get the immediate attention that he needed to overcome them; patients that had caretakers around them had a better chance in the human resource-stretched setting of Mulago. Indeed most people in his ward said he was left alone most of the time.

The policeman who had brought him in went to the address the next morning, and his brother was the first to make it to the hospital at 7am. However, he was too late; at that point the doctors were closing Will’s eyes.

Call for Reflection
This kind of thing happens all the time in Uganda. Many of us have heard such stories or know someone involved in something similar. Is this really the kind of society we want, where such young, wonderful promising people are robbed of everything – including the chance to survive?

Nowadays in Uganda and elsewhere, you find that people are often thinking about “me first”: “If I don’t take this guy’s wallet, someone else will, so it might as well be me.” This attitude can be a coping mechanism for the pressures of poverty and insecurity. However, it can also make us lose sight of the big picture of how our actions impact the society we live in.

It can be hard to convince people that they have power through their individual actions to change their society, especially when so many people are struggling just to provide for themselves and their families. But this power does exist, and it’s important for us all to realise that. A society is merely the sum of the interactions between all its members, and any positive change, no matter how small, is important. To prevent such situations in future, the government has an important role to play, for example by undertaking campaigns to promote taking care of our fellow citizens, including accident victims.

But you as a person can also make a difference. Will once wrote: “Everything good starts with ignoring a bad thought but welcoming the good one. Look into yourself and look for that good person in you coz no one was born bad person. Who are you?”

Your actions matter and can change things for the better. So if ever you find yourself in such a situation, please do it right. Take the person to the hospital. If you must steal, call the last dialled numbers and let the person’s friends know where he is before taking the phone. At the very least, leave the person’s contacts on them when you take their wallet.

Will’s death left his family and friends hurting, but if we come together and use our powers to change how we behave in such incidences, we will save other families from similar pain. It all starts – and ends – with us.

Six Olympic champions and thousands of ordinary commuters have backed the Times campaign to improve the safety of cycling in towns and cities in the United Kingdom. Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Bradley Wiggins, Chris Boardman, Rebecca Romero and Nicole Cooke, all of whom are Olympic gold medallists, joined Mark Cavendish, the world champion, in supporting the petition calling for a new covenant for cycling. Politicians, television personalities, leading businesses and ten city councils also pledged to support proposals to transform urban areas for bikes.

Official figures published yesterday show how urgent the need to protect cyclists in Britain has become. The number killed or seriously injured rose by 8 per cent in the third quarter of last year, following increases of 10 per cent and 8 per cent in the previous quarters. Death or serious injury among car drivers, motorcyclists and pedestrians in contrast continued to fall.

The Times is calling for mandatory improvements to lorries, the redesign of the most dangerous road junctions, better training of cyclists and drivers, reduced speed limits in residential areas and imaginative funding streams to build world-class cycle facilities.The potential for personal tragedy among cyclists and their families was driven home in November, when a reporter for the newspaper, Mary Bowers, was crushed by a lorry on her ride to work. Three months later, she remains unconscious in a hospital bed.

Rebecca Romero said: “I’m really pleased that finally this problem of deaths on the road is being acknowledged, and I hope the weight of the Times campaign can really push this.”

Politicians joined the chorus for improved road safety. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who is a keen cyclist and has promised to bring a cycling revolution to the capital, said: “I applaud the objectives of the campaign and my thoughts have been with their member of staff who was so tragically injured.” He said that his transport team had begun a review of 500 key junctions.

Campaigners called for urgent improvements to road safety. Robert Gifford, of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: “What is needed is consistent political leadership supported by a vision to improve our roads for all road users. Society should not tolerate deaths and injuries that can be prevented, especially when we have the means to prevent them at our disposal.”

Brian Cookson, president of British Cycling, said: “More and more people are cycling and we fully expect London 2012 to inspire even greater numbers to take to their bikes. As a nation we need to embrace this and ensure the roads are as safe as they can possibly be.”

His organisation published a summary of findings yesterday based on feedback received from its members. It called for a range of “mutual respect” measures, including greater cycle awareness in the driving test and Highway Code, better enforcement of the law on mobile phone use while driving, and improvements to poorly laid out roads and junctions.

This article was adapted from the Times and can be read here.

The YOURS team all took part in the United Nations World Youth Assembly for Road Safety in some capacity and now, five years on, are working in international youth and road safety at YOURS. We look at back at the team’s impressions of the assembly and what they did afterwards as part of our special World Youth Assembly feature.

Over 400 young people came together on the foot of the Swiss Alps in April 2007 to discuss global road safety in a changing world. With over 100 countries represented at the United Nations HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, the youth empowering United Nations World Youth Assembly for Road Safety Changed many young lives. Youth delegates left the assembly as United Nations World Youth Ambassadors for Road Safety, we look at where they are now…

As a special feature celebrating 5 years since the first United Nations World Youth Assembly for Road Safety that took place in April 2007 at the United Nations HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, YOURS is putting special spotlights on the the United Nations World Youth Ambassadors for Road Safety! You can read all about the feature and the World Youth Assembly here.

More than 400 young people left the assembly as youth ambassadors having undergone pledges to make young people in their nations safer on the roads through campaigning and road safety work. YOURS will be featuring two ambassadors at a time and today our feature is on the YOURS staff team itself.

In his second article of the new year, our regular youth columnist giving us the low down on everything youth and road safety in Africa Mr Brian K Mwebaze gives us his latest insights. In this article, Brian explores the power of the ‘girl-factor’ in peer-to-peer messaging and draws strong parallels to campaigns using the power of women in influencing their loved males.

Alright sons, time to get your seats in front of this fire place; girls, let’s have enough fire wood; we gotta have a talk right here! Sure, that’s how serious talks were held by our ancestors a few centuries ago but thanks to ‘modernization’, (I hate that word with all my heart and brain), serious talks are being held on Skype, phone, Twitter and Facebook with the former being the platform where relationship statuses are announced! *Shocked Face* Let’s put that in the cabin ok…we are talking about the ‘girl-factor’ or what many young people call ‘chick power’ as regards road safety in Africa. You see, I experienced my ‘Uh-ha! moment’ in 2010 when the then Uganda’s Minister for Ethics and Integrity announced on national television that girls on the road were responsible for a number of accidents on the road! His counterpart in Nigeria and South Africa did not object! Of course, in his reasoning, it had something to do with the dress code that would send many drivers’ brains to wonderland (that doesn’t include me though haha, being a road safety guy!). I have found this hard to accept (yet it looks true for now) that Beyonce was right to say “Girls Run The World”. Take a moment for example; I knew my mummy’s exact birth day before my daddy’s! Women have a massive influence in the world and this is probably understated.

Well, according to UNFPA (2010), the percentage of males aged 15-30 in Africa was 41% with that of females being 59%. We know this is supported by the genetic explanation of strong Y and Weak X Chromosomes-Hold up! I gotta save you from the rocket science explanations 😉 As the UN Decade of Action 2011-2020 puts it, this target group, especially males are also top on the list for being very vulnerable to road traffic crashes. In this case, I am not recommending for trans-sexuals to balance up the equation but you will agree with me that girls form a bigger population in arguably all cases namely, early levels of school education, in movie theatres, in supermarkets, when they support a political candidate<<<he/she MUST win. There are over 150,000 campaigns focusing on the girl child compared to about 200 campaigns focused on the boy child according to Oaklyn (2011). I know no special campaign focusing on the boy child in my country only that many of the programmes are horizontal-that is to say covering both boys, boys-to-men, men, and elders. But more for the record, over 80% of these programmes use the peer education approach!

The peer education approached gained momentum in Africa in the late 1980s following the discovery of the HIV/AIDS virus although in the 1800s it was used in England’s early education, and of course my father, Philosopher Pluto had already used the approach years before! This approach involved training peer educators on the facts about STDs and HIV/AIDS and then expected to provide vital life skills education to their peers. Although, there are more questions than answers as regards measuring the impact of this approach, it has since gained international approval and has been (well, and is still) running the show in the field of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention in Africa. But, has anybody, dared to use the same approach and this time using more girls as peer educators in the field of first aid and road safety? I mean, on a serious note, many of the drivers and motorcyclists in Africa are without any argument Men! If girls were given an enabling environment to exercise and advocate for road safety, it is natural that almost all men would take care while on the road!

Look guys, I am not looking at the exploitation factor, but I am looking at what Michael Gladwell in his book ‘The Tipping Point’ calls the ‘Stickiness Factor’. There is a higher chance that road safety messages will stick in the minds of these often ‘road safety care free dudes’ if they are shared in a peer-message by the women they love; daughters, girlfriends, wives, mothers, grandmothers, aunties, sisters, hence becoming a direct route to positive behavioral change while on the road. Some campaigns like the Sussex Road Safety Campaign and examples from Australia illustrate the influence of women on loved ones is major (examples in right column).

If you haven’t heard, the United Nations Secretary General Mr. Ban K-Moon (Did you notice, he has the same initials, B.K.M, as myself #SWAG) will be appointing a Special Youth Representative in his 5 year innovative vision…and…well…I hope am right..but wouldn’t it be cool to have this person a female?

Glasses of juice, water and milk up (not beer) for all the youth in Africa making road safety moves! Youth conventions in South Africa and Botswana around April 2012, Namibia May 2012, Niger, Benin, Senegal, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Gambia-road safety peeps! Wish you the best in your arrangements, but could you please dare the peer education approach into road safety with the girl power factor forming the pillar? As for the organizations running the already mentioned 150,000 girl child focused campaigns, if only we had at least 1 female peer educator in the schools you operate in, the African gods would be extremely happy!

The Road Safety in 10 Countries Project (RS10) was  funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies back in 2010 to improve road safety in 10 low and middle income countries (LMICs). A consortium of partners iniated this program and worked in key areas of focus in improving road safety from road trauma care to the promotion of seatbelt and helmet use. The project has now received additional funding to continue its work.

The RS10 Project currently works in the following 10 countries:

• Brazil
• Cambodia,
• China
• Egypt
• India
• Kenya
• Mexico
• Russian Federation
• Turkey
• Vietnam 

Additionally, the project focuses on trauma care in Kenya and India, and data systems development in Kenya and Egypt.

2012 marks the half-way point in this 5-year project whose overall goal is to prevent thousands of road traffic deaths and injuries. Conducted during the Decade of Action for Road Safety, the RS10 Project will provide useful information on “what works” in developing countries while the second Global status report on road safety will provide a baseline from which to measure Decade achievements.

Some of RS10’s Activities Include:

• Reviewing the current road safety legislation and proposing appropriate amendments where necessary.
• Developing road safety social marketing campaigns relating to specific risk factors to be addressed nationally and in specific intervention sites. These are aimed at sensitizing the general public about particularly risky behaviour, or at increasing their awareness about enforcement;
• Procuring equipment relating to the identified riskfactors (e.g. alcohol breathalyzers, speed radars) and training police in their use;
• Training police in enhanced enforcement practices and supporting the implementation there of; Training other road safety personnel including health care workers about road traffic injury prevention;
• Improving the road traffic data information systems in two countries;
• Assessing the prehospital and trauma care needs in two countries and addressing these through training, provision of equipment, monitoring, etc.; and
• Ongoing monitoring of key indicators in the intervention sites. 

More information about RS10 can be found in attachments.

Attachments