With the attendance of our founding partner Michelin, information about the ROSYPE project as well as Michelin’s CSR work in global road safety was presented with gusto and energy while delegates can apply for the project to run ROSYPE in one European country at the forum.

Keeping true to the youthful approach to the forum, delegates broke up into two groups and discussed two topics, ‘Safety on Two Wheels’ and ‘Eco Driving’ and had a dynamic debate about these areas with regards to bringing more attention to the topics in Europe.

After this, Communications Officer at YOURS, Manpreet Darroch presented about the importance of online media and the advantages and disadvantages of reliance on the internet. His presentation can be found in the attachment. Both Floor´s and Manpreet’s presentation will be available to be viewed as a video online shortly as they were last year.

Very exciting news was shared by the European Commission in which the launch of the new ‘Going Abroad App’ for road safety rules on Europe’s roads was shared with the delegates. As well as this, the European Commission revealed that they will be running a youth and road safety Facebook campaign towards the end of the year. More details will be shared in due course.

The final presentations were well received by the delegates of the forum. An official report on the two days, including the future of the forum will be online as soon as it has been made available. In total there were 65 participants attending including 52 official young delegates from 27 EU member states.

The conference ends with the message, ‘Together we can make our European roads safe’. The final word went to Isabelle Kardacz Director of DG MOVE. She told delegates, ‘To work together, give the European Commission your valuable input and work hard to implement road safety in Europe’.

The day began with clear policy orientations of the European Union presented by Isabelle Kardacz, director of the road safety department at the European Commission. Her presentation described strategy and actions for the coming decade 2011-2020. Mrs Kardacz expressed, “This youth forum is an important element for reducing the amount of young people being killed on Europe´s roads, you need to go away from this foum as you did last year and implement action´.

Mrs Kardacz also invited young people to ´give their input to the EU policy orientations´ and wished for the creation of a ´think tank´ to actively influence road safety at the highest level of decision making in Europe.

One of the most momentous actions that has already taken place comes in the form of the European Youth Declaration for Road Safety. YOURS helped draft the declaration which calls for sustainable road safety action across Europe for the years ahead. The declaration will empower the European youth delegates to initiate action in their nations under the mandate of European Youth Ambassador for Road Safety. This is not just another declaration, among other things, its content focusses on:

• The road safety problem in Europe facing young people.
• The commitment of the European youth delegates to implement action for road safety.
• The importance of the contiunation of the forum in Europe.
• To encourage the development and implementation of policy and initiatives to make European roads safer.

Director of YOURS Mr Floor Lieshout presented about the background of creating a Youth Declaration and how to use this tool for advocacy, he said, “A declaration is as good as its implementation and therefore young delegates should actively make their voices heard using this tool as source of credibility”. His presentation is available in the attachments.

In other news, there were presentations of tools, statistics and research related to youth and road safety issues. It has been an intensive but fruitful day and YOURS will report on proceedings for day two tomorrow.

You can follow the debate on Twitter by searching the hashtag #EYFRS and let us know what you think! 

YOURS is happy to share with you our report to the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration that took place last week (14-15th November 2011) at the World Health Organization HQ in Geneva, Switzerland. The presentation is PREZI based and can be viewed at our link below!

Recently, YOURS presented to the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration. The Collaboration is an informal consultative mechanism whose members are committed to road safety efforts and in particular to the implementation of the recommendations of the World report on road traffic injury prevention. The goal of the Collaboration is to facilitate international cooperation and to strengthen global and regional coordination among UN agencies and other international partners to implement UN General Assembly Resolutions and the recommendations of the World report thereby supporting country programmes.

YOURS Director, Mr Floor Lieshout presented to the collaboration about our recent landmark assembly for road safety that brought together young delegates from around Africa to discuss road safety issues in the continent.

As many of us are aware, the African continent has 2% of the world’s registered vehicles but pays the price of 20% of all road deaths. Road safety is a massive deal in Africa and the African Youth Assembly for Road Safety was a great momentum for youth to meet, to inspire eachother and to share their knowledge and experiences. It was also an official starting point for the African Youth Network, under the leadership of YOURS Coordinators: Aliou Oumarou for French speaking countries and  Sheila Altieno for the English speaking countries.

The PREZI report can be viewed here.

20/11/11 is the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDR) and today, YOURS launches its Embrace Life Photo Exhibition. During the WDR we mourn the nearly 1.3 million deaths on our roads and reminds us to embrace life and commit to road safety. We share with you this collection of inspiring pictures from people around the world who have shown us how they embrace life and commit to road safety. Check out our exhibition now.