Oman to Host Regional Youth Assembly for Road Safety

Oman to Host Regional Youth Assembly for Road Safety

by | Nov 9, 2023 | News & Blog

Tomorrow, the first Regional Youth Assembly for Road Safety will take place from 19-21 February in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Muscat, Oman. The event is the first of its kind in the Middle Eastern region and is set to emualate some of the objectives of the World Youth Assembly 2007.

 

The Omani Youth Ambassadors for Road Safety, under the patronage of the Oman Road Safety Association (ORSA), and in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), Middle East and North Africa Road Safety Partnership (MENARSP), and YOURS – Youth for Road Safety are organizing the first Regional Youth Assembly. This event, modeled on the formal of the UN General Assembly, is the first regional youth assembly following the World Youth Assembly in 2007 and it will spearhead the activities of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020.

Objectives

  • Give a strong voice to young people in the region
  • Follow up on progress made since the World Youth Assembly in 2007, particularly in the areas of increasing youth involvement in road safety and implementing the Youth Declaration
  • Support knowledge and experience sharing among youth
  • Empower youth to become road safety advocates and mobilize them to join the global youth road safety movement
  • Identify specific actions which youth in the region can take to prevent toad traffic injuries and contribute to the Decade of Action for Road Safety

YOURS will be attending the event and has the honor to give a key-note speech. YOURS will also facilitate some of the working groups. A report, including photos and videoa about the event will be published in due course.

World experts address road safety in uncertain economic times

World experts address road safety in uncertain economic times

by | Nov 9, 2023 | News & Blog

Road safety experts from around the world met in Birmingham on 15th February to hammer out ways to continue saving lives and reducing injuries on the roads in the wake of public spending cuts. Professionals from as far afield as Cyprus, Hong Kong and Nigeria, as well as from around the UK, joined the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to look at how tackling the deficit will affect road safety.

Tom Mullarkey, RoSPA’s chief executive, gave the keynote address at RoSPA’s Road Safety Seminar. He focussed on the event’s overriding theme – road safety in a time of reduced public spending across the world – as well as touching on the more positive aspects of road safety that have emerged recently.

The Department for Transport in the United Kingdom is now committed to publishing a strategic framework for road safety by April this year; and the launch of the UN’s Decade of Action for Road Safety on May 11 shows that casualty reduction on the roads will remain a global priority.

Tom Mullarkey said: “With 1.3million people killed in road accidents around the world, and tens of millions injured, Britain must play its part in the Decade of Action. RoSPA intends to continue improving the UK’s accident and injury rate and we look forward to sharing our expertise and experience with other countries – as well as learning from their successes.

“In the light of reduced public spending, it is more important than ever that road safety is undertaken efficiently and effectively, and I hope that today’s seminar will provide road safety professionals with plenty of ideas to take away and put into practice.”

Robert Gifford, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) were among the speakers. Other presentations at the seminar included:

  • Ensuring that actual problems are identified and targeted, rather than perceived problems
  • Looking at evidence-based approaches to road safety interventions, ensuring that local authorities get the best value for money
  • Using intelligence data and predictive analysis in the same way it is used for crime prevention
  • How behavioural change techniques for young people could be used in road safety schemes.

Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at RoSPA, said: “We hope that that the seminar will enable people to go back to their organisations feeling positive about what they can do to improve road safety in their areas, in spite of reduced budgets across the board.”  

See www.rospa.com/events/roadsafetyseminar/ for more information about RoSPA’s Road Safety Seminar, including a full programme.

YOURS and RoSPA

Last year, YOURS presented at the 75th Annual RoSPA Road Safety Congress in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. As one of YOURS’ early appearances on the global road safety scene, the congress enabled YOURS to present their mission of reducing the amount of young people being killed on the world’s roads. YOURS continues to support the work of RoSPA in their field of road safety expertise and congratulates the organization of this seminar.

Reporting from the YOURS Staff Team Meeting

Reporting from the YOURS Staff Team Meeting

by | Nov 8, 2023 | News & Blog

From the 11-14 February YOURS : Youth for Road Safety held its first staff team meeting since the organization began. The appointment of two staff in addition to the Chief Executive took place towards the end of 2010 and since then, YOURS has grown in capacity and has formalized plans for the year ahead.

The years ahead are exciting times for road safety. While the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-20 is set to create significant political will to reduce the amount of crashes on the world’s roads, YOURS has made plans for the year 2011 and the years ahead.

The YOURS Team Meeting was geared around specific measurable outcomes and YOURS revised and reviewed actions and work that took place in 2010.  YOURS has ambitious plans for the years ahead which include a range of new activities, advocacy campaigns, workshops and media activities. During the meeting, YOURS were able to revise and restructure our organizational approach with particular importance placed on the development of our youth network.

During the meeting, YOURS reviewed and updated its strategy plan 2011-2013 and updated its communications strategy with feedback from the YOURS Youth Taskforce.

In 2011:

  • YOURS will launch a new advocacy campaign that will mobilize our global youth network into taking action and illustrating that young people will step up to the plate to play their part in the Decade of Action.
  • YOURS will also finalize and publish its Youth and Road Safety Welcome Kit; a guide for young people and road safety intitiatives
  • YOURS is set to develop a range of new media initiatves to engage young people during the Decade of Action and bring visability to the youth and road safety problem with active solutions.
  • YOURS will continue to develop the capacities of young people as road safety ambassadors, peer leaders, role models and project managers for road safety across the world.

Our youth network is an integral part of our work and while YOURS continues to be inherently youth led, the participation of our network in the decision making of YOURS will underpin our work in the years ahead. With this clear sentiment and approach, we continue to work with young people in the preceding years to expand our reach and impact.

Spotlight On: OSAID – Canada

Spotlight On: OSAID – Canada

by | Nov 8, 2023 | News & Blog

In January, we put the spotlight on OSAID a road safety organization based in Canada and who are doing some incredible exemplary work. We talk here about what it is they do and how they are engaging Canadian young people in anti impaired driving message.

OSAID stands for Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving and is based in Ontario, Canada.  Their adult Board of Directors is a voluntary body and consists of professionals from teaching, police services and commerce.  The Board members are based across the province. The Board of Directors ( BOD) works each year with an elected group of students – OSAID members who are elected to their Regional Representative position each year at Conference. 

The Representatives become members of OSAID’s Student Advisory Council ( SAC) and they may also work with the person who was runner up in the election – an Associate. In addition to travelling to attend four planning /working weekend meetings in the year ( some for as many as ten hours – it’s a big province!) the SAC and Associate liaise with OSAID student members and their Staff Advisors and administrators ( head teachers or principals as we call them here) and offer help and advice about OSAID activities and to help students promote the OSAID ‘message’ to members of their student bodies. They also stage a regional workshop – a one day mini conference for schools within their Region. This gives them valuable experience when it come to running Conference – the SAC and Associates are involved every step of the way and do much of the ‘running’ of Conference, too.  OSAID is run by the students – the adults are there to offer support and advice but it really is peer run. 

So, where are they based? The answer is the entire province of Ontario though we maintain an OSAID Inc address in Toronto and I work at the ‘Rural Roots Office’ in Stirling – and Stirling is very rural.

The history of OSAID is available on their website – here’s a link to OSAID’s history and achievements.

Some of the OSAID activities are listed on the OSAID website – here’s a link to some of the most popular events, projects and activities.  Their most recent project is the OSAID signs ( which you’ll see in the ‘Projects’ section) and was started as the result of an idea put forward by one of our Associates this year.  If you flick through the most recent issue of OSAID Speaks, you’ll find in the Region Round up sections, information about what the members were doing OSAID – wise over Christmas. The Region 6 Markham Christmas parade being a good example. Also, see the report on the National Day of Remembrance which was held at our Region 8 Rep’s school. These will give you a flavour for the sort of activities our OSAID members get up to.

Their website is their main communication tool and it is divided into a section for prospective student members – How to Join. The prospective Staff Advisors, parents and principals are encouraged to review the OSAID Corporate section. OSAID forums are live blogs, ideas for fundraising to awareness raising projects can be found in School Events, Project, etc and the award winning iDrive Road Stories DVD ( in which OSAID played a consultative part) can be ordered online – this forms, if you like, a ‘mini’ website to help the Ministry of Transport and OCCID distribute this DVD. 

Their Newsroom contains the SAC’s monthly blogs and OSAID Speaks, their online newsletter. Photos contains various photo galleries and Conferences contains all the current information about Conference 2011. Contests is proving to be very popular and lists the most recent results – a new contest is coming up shortly! Barney Bear is the OSAID mascot bear who is currently in Ottawa and will be travelling to Toronto. He’s travelling on a hand to hand basis from OSAID member to OSAID member around the province – a fun awareness raising bear! OSAID t-shirts are available to members and we regularly feature photos in the newsletter of where the OSAID t-shirt’s message  been taken – most recently to Cuba.

OSAID will also shortly be placing the re-designed OSAID Membership Manual and Staff Advisor Manual on the website with in a ‘Members’ section ( to be created).  Doing this will enable us to keep our information current. We’re also hoping to be able to move towards producing more OSAID posters as well as producing more materials in French – this being officially a bi-lingual province.

YOURS thanks Elaine ad Matt Evans for the information provided.

The UN Decade of Action for Road Safety: How did it come to be?

The UN Decade of Action for Road Safety: How did it come to be?

by | Nov 8, 2023 | News & Blog

The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety has been mentioned many times over the past year and in 2011, we witness the historic launch in May. Yet, while the Decade of Action means real change for road safety globally, where did it come from? Our youth network representative from India, Ms Anupama Kumar writes here about the key milestones that lead to the Decade and the involvement of YOURS.

As YOURS has repeatedly reiterated, road traffic crashes are among the leading causes of preventable death of young people worldwide. We are therefore very excited indeed that 2011-2020 has been declared the Decade of Action for Road Safety by the United Nations. What have the events leading up to this been?

The landmark event in identifying road safety as a global health concern was the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of October, 2005 (UN Doc. A/RES/60/5), identifying the importance of road safety as a global health concern which also affected young people worldwide. The resolution also reaffirmed the need to focus on road safety strategies by countries all over the world. This was followed by a series of initiatives by various UN Agencies, such as WHO and UNECE.

What followed was the First UN Global Road Safety Week in April 2007. An important part of this week was the first United Nations World Youth Assembly in April, 2007. The World Youth Assembly, which was to become the beginning of YOURS, brought together young people from all over the world to discuss road safety, a concern that united them all. With over 400 young people from all corners of the globe, young people adopted the World Youth Declaration for Road Safety.

The great leap forward though, was the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Moscow, 2009. Here, various stakeholders from all over the world came together to debate on various matters of road safety. The Moscow meeting culminated in the Moscow Declaration, which further reiterated the importance of Road Safety as a global concern and asked for a Decade of Action for Road Safety. It was also here that YOURS brought together over 20 youth delegates who wrote and endorsed the Moscow Youth Declaration for Road Safety. You can view some of the video testimonials here.

Finally, in 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety. The resolution was co-sponsored by more than 100 countries. You can view the video report, made by YOURS, here.

So what is to take place this Decade? As the Global Plan on Road Safety states, the focus of this decade will be on preventing deaths from road safety. The five pillars on which this will focus, therefore, will be road safety management, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer road users and improved crash response. Young people play a role in each of these, in particular, advocating and networking with other young people in ensuring that these goals are reached, and this is one of the roles that YOURS seeks to play this decade.

YOURS Staff Team Meeting

YOURS Staff Team Meeting

by | Nov 8, 2023 | News & Blog

In early February, YOURS is set to arrange its staff team meeting to plan and scope for the year ahead. With big milestones to reach and much work to be achieved in global road safety, 2011 is set to be a massive year for YOURS and this meeting will help realise this potential.

The YOURS core Staff Team are meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in February to focus on key strategic plans for the year ahead. The meeting will also serve as a key evaluation of 2010 and as YOURS forges more partnerships across the world, we are set to create new initiatives that aim to reduce the amount of young people being killed on the world’s roads.

Some of the key items being discussed are:

  • Review and Implementation of the YOURS Welcome Kit for young people
  • Review and scoping of international network campaigns for 2011
  • A scoping of activities to take place to commemorate the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety
  • Strategic planning of YOURS education and communication tools

It is an exciting time for YOURS as we reach the eve of the Decade of Action. All of our decisions are taken by young people for young people, with young people illustrating a level of participation on global scale that underpins all of our work. We are planning some exciting events for this year and we hope you continue to be part of their success.