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

Civil society is looking to the High-level Meeting on Road Safety in New York in June 2022 with an equal sense of excitement and hope. The Second Decade of Action for Road Safety has started, with its Global Plan in place, and the Supporting Event for the High-level Meeting in December 2021 has built high expectations that the High-level Meeting will be an important milestone in the global effort to reduce the unacceptable number of people killed on our roads, every minute, every day and every year. We hope that the High-level Meeting will set the stage for real leadership, allocation of resources and implementation of actions to meet this objective.

However, the disastrous war in Ukraine gives us cause for great concern with regards to the chances of ensuring successful negotiations of the High-level Meeting Declaration. It appears very likely that a large number of United Nations Member States will be reluctant to engage in a dialogue led by the Russian Mission to the UN and that we will lose the opportunity to negotiate a powerful and unifying text that is so critically needed to give momentum to the Second Decade of Action.

For more than a decade the Russian Federation had been playing a constructive and leading role at the United Nations on the Global Road Safety agenda. Yet through its invasion of Ukraine, which has received condemnation by the majority of the UN General Assembly, Russia has forfeited any credibility to lead on a major issue of global public health. We urge the Russian Federation to voluntarily step aside from its current negotiating role. As an alternative it could be considered that Sweden could share this responsibility with Cote D’Ivoire, given its success in hosting the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Stockholm in February 2020.

We must find a way forward. Without it, we are concerned that the vital opportunity to make a real change for road safety that will save the lives of many thousands of people around the world every year may be missed.

YOURS – Youth for Road Safety Executive Director Floor Lieshout will join the International Transport Forum (ITF) in a virtual event to commemorate International Women’s Day 2022. The session will be guided by the topic; Women and Road Safety: Are we on track to meet SDG Target 3.6? It’s happening next Tuesday, 8 March, from 11 AM to 12 PM CET. Registrations are open!

Transport and Inclusive societies
The session will fit into the theme of the ITF Summit 2022; Transport for Inclusive Societies. It will delve into the mobility topic with a special focus on how it affects more vulnerable sectors which include women.

Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), road safety falls under SDG 3: Health and Well-Being. The pandemic has revealed how important mobility is for people while also highlighting how the transport system rarely caters to the needs of different societal sectors. The ITF asks what things still need to be done over the next eight years to reach the target of halving road-related deaths and injuries by 2030.

The topic will particularly be discussed during the Ministerial Roundtable happening in May and will provide input for the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Road Safety happening at the end of June.

About the event
The session is part of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) March on Gender Programme which features a series of events throughout the month of March that focus on fender aspects of different policy discussions.

The first session will review the current state of road safety at both global and regional levels. The discussion will revolve around the question; how are the needs of women being taken into account in the formulation of road safety policies? This is the session we will be joining.

The second one will address the issue of road safety equipment in vehicles that have been traditionally designed based on male crash dummies. The session will highlight how serious the implications are for women and will also look into different measures to address these issues.

Join the event to learn more! 

REGISTER HERE

YOURS – Youth for Road Safety is continuously working on its role as the growing authority on youth and road safety issues both locally and globally. To ensure that the organization moves with the changing needs of young people and the road safety and sustainable mobility sector, we brought in new and capable people who can help further the road safety and youth agendas. We are pleased to present the people behind the YOURS team!

FLOOR LIESHOUT, Executive Director 
As the Executive Director, Floor takes on the leadership role of the organization. He oversees the projects and activities under YOURS and the Global Youth Coalition, ensuring that it is aligned with the road safety agenda presented in the new Decade of Action for Road Safety and the 2030 Agenda for Road Safety. Floor is a native of The Netherlands and holds an engineering degree. He started his road safety career as a youth advocate when he was 18 years old.

MANPREET DARROCH, Capacity Development Director 
Manpreet is leading all capacity and knowledge development activities and initiatives of YOURS and the Youth Coalition. As Capacity Development Director, he will provide technical leadership to capacity-building strategies for improving the knowledge of our youth leaders. Manpreet is an award-winning campaigner who has been working in youth and road safety for over a decade.

STEFANIA MINNITI, Advocacy Director
As the Advocacy Director, Stefania will provide leadership and strategic direction for YOURS’ advocacy work. She is responsible for developing and implementing the organization’s long-term strategy and work plan. She will also manage the network for relevant stakeholders and clients working with YOURS and the Youth Coalition. Stefania is from Italy, and she has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and International Relations and a Master’s Degree in International Development Cooperation.

RAQUEL BARRIOS, Projects Director 
Raquel, as the Projects Director, assumes the leadership role of monitoring and supervising the organization’s projects and activity dashboard. She also works to ensure the strategic direction and accountability of the YOURS and Youth Coalition projects on both global and local levels. Raquel was born in Nicaragua but she currently lives in Madrid. She has always worked in the non-profit sector with different development causes, such as poverty, inequalities, etc.

IVÁN VÍQUEZ SOLÓRZANO, Senior Project Manager 
Taking on the Senior Project Manager role, Iván handles key projects of the Youth Coalition. He works on global campaigns, closely coordinating with partners and the youth members to ensure that the goals and objectives of the campaigns are met and that the project is successfully implemented across all channels and platforms. Ivan is originally from Costa Rica. He has previously worked in branding and regularly travels across the world, learning about different cultures and connecting with different people. 

SANA’A KHASAWNEH, Junior Project Manager 
Sana’a, as the Junior Project Manager, will handle events under the Youth Coalition. She is tasked with the conceptualization, implementation, and assessment of these projects, ensuring that they are able to cater to the needs of the members and are aligned with the road safety agenda. She also works on the recruitment and engagement of Youth Coalition members. Sana’a s an architect with a master’s degree in road safety management.

MAOLIN MACATANGAY, Communications Manager 
As the Communications Manager, Mao oversees all the comms around YOURS and the Youth Coalition. She creates and leads efforts to disseminate information and updates to partners, stakeholders, and members of the Youth Coalition. She also manages the websites and the social media channels of both YOURS and the Youth Coalition. Mao has a Master’s degree in Development Communication from the University of the Philippines and has worked in comms since 2016.

To learn more about the team and our activities, go to our website!

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