After returning to Canada following the World Youth Assembly, several of the delegates formed the Canadian Road Safety Youth Committee. The CRYSC has worked to recruit other young Canadians, and now has representation from many regions of the country. The CRSYC has four main goals: awareness, advocacy, networking, and promotion of the UN Declaration. To meet these goals, the CRSYC has developed a three year strategic plan.

Since 2007, the CRSYC has held a seat on the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals (CARSP) board of directors and is an associate member of the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA). Committee members also sit on the Global Road Safety Committee and will be working with CCMTA on the development of Road Safety Vision 2020, Canada’s national road safety strategy. In addition, the planning committee for the Canadian Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference includes a member of CRSYC, which has been the case since the committee’s inception. They have strong support from Transport Canada, CARSP, and CCMTA.

In November 2008, the CRSYC held its first major awareness raising event in conjunction with Canada’s first Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. In addition to participating on the planning committee, the CRYSC held a national contest entitled “Rock the Hill for Road Safety” in reference to Parliament Hill where the national government is convened. The contest asked young Canadians to submit a response to the question “Road safety… what’s it to you?” The winner attended the Day of Remembrance events in the nation’s capital and presented her winning entry to those in attendance.

In March 2009 The Canadian Road Safety Youth Committee formally accepted the invitation to join the Taskforce that helped determine the strategy and activities of YOURS.

Mr Duane Ironstand, chair of CRSYC: “In light of the progress Canada has made in raising awareness, creating a network, and giving a youth voice to public policy, we feel that we are well positioned to make a significant contribution to YOURS – Youth for Road Safety. We look forward to our continued involvement with the international road safety community”

For more information you can contact Duane at: Chair@youthroadsafety.ca.

The National Youth Parliament and the Gambia Red Cross society signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday 17 March to promote road safety. Mr Ousman Conteh, member of the Youth Taskforce of YOURS and working for the National Youth Parliament of the Gambia updated us about this progress. He is leading the partnership between the Youth Paliament and the Red Cross in the Gambia in order to mobilize and inspire young people to take some of the responsibilities on their own shoulders. The partnership objectives are to build capacity, to advocate for young people and ensure resources for road safety projects. Below you can read his story:

Dear friends,
I am still overwhelmed by the road traffic crashes that continue to shatter the dreams of our young people in the Gambia on frequent basis. Because of this and the giant stride by YOURS, that I committed myself to advocate for the safety of young people on the world roads particularly my own country the Gambia.

This is what prompted me to lead and initiate a road safety partnership. I served as the nominated Chairperson of this joint commission between the National Youth Parliament of The Gambia and the National Youth Commission of the Gambia Redcross Society. We signed a memorandum of understanding between the two youth institutions to join forces to fight road crashes in the Gambia last week on 17 March 2010.

The ultimate objectives of this partnership is to mobilize and inspire the young people of the Gambia to take responsibility and raise a strong voice for the safety of young people on our roads, through Capacity Building, Advocacy, Lobbying and resource mobilisation. The most exciting thing about this project is that The Gambia Red Cross Society has a youth membership of 30,000 members across the bread and length of the Gambia and therefore has our partnership the potential to reach thousands of young people in the Gambia.

We belief that road safety issues are multisectoral. We do not lose  sight of demanding the support of our government, the private sector and the other partners. For example the World Health Organisation office in the Gambia, who provided mainly the technical and financial support to the government of the Gambia to support their road safety initiatives. It is with great pleasure to share with you all that we already have the endorsement by the Ministry responsible for Works Construction and Infrastructure, The Media, The WHO Gambia office and other partners as they all participated at the official signing ceremony of this event. Therefore, we hope to push road safety higher on the agenda in the Gambia.

In this regard, it’s my honour and privilege to report this breakthrough in the history of road safety campaign in the Gambia.

Please see the attached copy of the Memorandum of Understanding, a media article about this effort in the Gambia and some photos.