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.

Global Meeting of NGOs Advocating for Road Safety: Washington DC

Global Meeting of NGOs Advocating for Road Safety: Washington DC

by | Nov 8, 2023 | News & Blog

On the 14th and 15th March 2011, YOURS will be attending the Second Global Meeting of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOS) Advocating for Road Safety and Road Victims. The event will bring together the world’s leading NGOs for road safety to Washington DC to discuss a range of issues including the implementation of the Decade of Action for Road Safety.

The meeting will be hosted at the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for the Americas and the Headquarters of the Pan American Health Organiziation. The event will aid in the facilitation of NGO contribution in the launch of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety among other things.

A key objective will be to actively pursue an international effort for the implementation of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020. It will seek to ‘create a global alliance of NGOs advocating for road safety and road victims; strengthen the capacity of NGOs to engage with the media; and share knowledge, experience and approaches to advocating road safety and road crash victims’.

YOURS is a proud member of the International Steering Group that is organizing this event in collaboration with the WHO and the UN Road Safety Collaboration and we believe that this meeting will be a strong starting point to implement a global strategic plan to maximize the launch of the Decade of Action.

In February, YOURS’ core staff team will also be discussing their plans for the Decade of Action launch which will involve the participation of the international global youth network that is present on the YOURS website. These plans will also be fed into the larger plans coordinated at this meeting.

Minnesota Students Push for Phone Ban

Minnesota Students Push for Phone Ban

by | Nov 8, 2023 | News & Blog

If a group of Mounds Park Academy students has their way, drivers in Minnesota would no longer be able to use cell phones while behind the wheel. “Our bill would be different than the other bills in the past because it bans both hands-held and hands free,” said senior Tim Gaughan.

Original Story Can be found at: http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=899638
Reported at KARE by: Rena Sarigianopoulos (12/1/2011)

The four students took on the cell phone topic for their Public Policy and Private Initiative class. They did research on the number of deaths and injuries related to driving while using a wireless device, they drafted language for legislation, and took it to their state senator.

“I wish we didn’t have to legislate something like this, but the bottom line is there’s a lot of deaths, a lot of injuries and we need to do something about it,” said State Senator Chuck Wiger.

Wiger introduced the bill on behalf of the students Monday. If it passes, as is, all drivers would be prohibited from using their phones for any reason in the car, unless it’s an emergency. They could also face fines up to $300.

“If this law passes, it will be the first law in the United State to ban hands-free devices, which is actually kind of cool because research we found shows that hands-free is no different than driving hands-held,” said senior Katherine Garvey.

Minnesota already bans cell use for bus drivers and young drivers with provisional licenses. They students know pushing it to the rest of the population will be a tough sell.

“Maybe this bill isn’t the one that gets passed, but at least it will provoke conversation and thoughts on the issue, and that’s really what you want to do is get the issue moving,” said Gaughan.

The students’ teacher, Maureen Conway, says regardless of the outcome of this particular bill, she hopes the lesson learned is that the path to change has to start somewhere.

“The most important idea I want them to get out of this is that all of this history happened because individual people took a chance. Individual people wanted something done. They approached the government, they created a foundation, they did something because they wanted to see change,” said Conway.

YOURS sees this as a great initiative for youth advocacy and shows the true potential of youth to not only take a stand on issues they feel passionate about, but it also illustrates young people’s potential to influence safety policy.

The United States, along with the many states that passed the United Nations Resolution calling for a Decade of Action will inevitably see more young people stepping up to the plate to take decisive action like this. Road safety is a multifaceted issue and with good laws and its enforcement, coupled with quality infrastructure and safety education, we can dramatically reduce the amount of people falling victim to road crashes.

Vida Urgente: 2011 Message

Vida Urgente: 2011 Message

by | Nov 8, 2023 | News & Blog

In at the end of 2010, our Brazillian partners Vida Urgente sent us an end of year message focusing on the achievements of the year and their goals for 2011 in the field of road safety. We share them here with you.

 

As we begin the year, YOURS congratulates Vida Urgente, a large volunteering organisation based in Brazil for the work they have done over 2010. The sentiment they take into 2011 is: ‘Let Life Be the Best News We Share’ and their article illustrates only positive news stories focusing on the accomplishments of Vida Urgente.

In 2009, one of the biggest youth delegations that joined the YOURS ranks at the Global Ministerial Conference for Road Safety in Moscow, Russia were Vida Urgente who sent a team of volunteers to support the endorsement of the Youth Declaration for Road Safety presented at the conference. Vida Urgente are also members of the YOURS Youth Taskforce that helped vision the start of YOURS.

The news item here shows some impressive work achieved; Companies paticipating in Vida Urgente programs have seen a 22% deacrease in road crashes, their theatrical performances about road safety have reached over 77,000 young people in Brazil and through their numerous projects have managed to save many lives!

Our YOURS representative in Brazil, Mr Alex Camargo told us that they are working on big plans for the launch of the Decade of Action for Road Safety and have some major projects scheduled in the field of road safety in the year ahead.

Vida Urgente are great supporters of YOURS and we continue to work together in 2011.

Find out more about Vide Urgente by visiting their website.