YOURS – Youth for Road Safety is looking for an Advocacy Director to be responsible for the development and implementation of our advocacy strategy and work plan. The Advocacy Director will be working in collaboration with the YOURS team in accordance with our organizational principles, vision, and mission.
About Our Work
YOURS is a global organization that acts to make the world’s roads safe for youth. We are experts in youth and road safety issues and advocate for sustainable mobility at the highest levels of decision-making. We believe in meaningful youth participation as a key strategy to change these statistics.
With strategic global advocacy and empowering youth locally, we will unlock a global revolution for road safety and make this generation the last one facing this massive public health threat.
We are a small team with big ideas and powerful allies. We are proud of our work and have loads of fun while doing it. The Advocacy Director is a new exciting role within the leading global organization on youth and road safety issues. We need you to be pro-active, organized, self-managing, a self-starter, and ready to take our global advocacy work to the next level.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Advocacy Director
The Advocacy Director provides leadership and strategic direction for YOURS’ advocacy work and is responsible for the development and implementation of its long-term strategy and work plan.
The Advocacy Director assumes a leadership role in partnering with, building, and maintaining relationships with all relevant stakeholders, such as foundations, businesses, universities, multilateral, governments, youth leaders, other non-profits, and supporters with the mission of expanding youth voices and experiences on road safety and safe mobility in decision-making spaces. The Advocacy Director oversees all advocacy elements of each project and ensures it is strategically focused and connected.
Today, July 7, the Coalition is celebrating the anniversary of its launch! The Global Youth Coalition was initiated by YOURS – Youth for Road Safety and is a direct follow-up after the 2nd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety. The Coalition unites individual youth and organizations for road safety and sustainable mobility and offers opportunities, skills, resources, capacity development, and partnerships for its members so that they maximize their impact on road safety and meaningful youth involvement in their respective countries and communities.
Since its launch last 7 July 2020, the Coalition has gained over 500 members from 96 different countries worldwide. Empowering its members, the Coalition has been featured in multiple local and global events that highlight the role of young people in achieving the targets listed in the Global Goals.
Made possible by our partners, our members are empowered to take action to further road safety and sustainable mobility efforts through meaningful youth involvement.
”We are particularly proud to support the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety through our TotalEnergies Foundation program. We recognize that young leaders have a key role to play in advocating for safe mobility and in mobilizing around national and regional initiatives, in the frame of the 2021-2030 Decade for Road Safety. We also believe in joining forces, which is why TotalEnergies is for instance actively promoting the #ArtforRoadSafety challenge, currently going on in Egypt, Senegal and Uganda. Congratulations on the work done during this past year and please do keep claiming your space!” – Bruno Courme, Director of TotalEnergies Foundation
Since the beginning of its launch, partners of the Coalition have continuously expressed their support for road safety and meaningful youth participation. For the anniversary, partners have reaffirmed their commitment to the Coalition and its leaders.
”The Michelin Corporate Foundation wishes to reaffirm its commitment to the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety. In 2020, The Michelin Foundation joined the Global Youth Coalition, giving support to the promotion of road safety among young people throughout the world. Based on the experience acquired during this year, thanks to the Youth Coalition work, we have a vision for a safer society and strive to achieve the UN goal of reducing road deaths by 50% in 2030” – Theodore Zreik, Corporate Public Affairs, Michelin Foundation
Read about the events and activities members of the Coalition have led and taken part in by visiting our news page.
Through our members and partners, the Coalition has created a strong group of youth leaders who are raising their voices and are joining together to ensure meaningful youth participation in road safety and sustainable mobility and are also taking evidence-based actions to empower youth leaders and reduce road traffic injuries in their communities.
“The Coalition is family! It keeps me in the spirit of saving lives. This is home for me, the members and colleagues are amazing people full of innovative ideas. l always learn new things every day and trust me there are huge opportunities for growth.” – Tendekayi Marapara, Coalition Regional Leader for Africa
The Coalition is a growing and thriving youth network of strong leaders working to keep youth around the world safe on the world’s roads. Get involved today by joining here.
We have some activities you could take part in to commemorate the Coalition’s first year! Click the link below!
The #ArtforRoadSafety challenge kicks off this week, July 6 to 8, in Egypt featuring local artist Ahmed Fathy (Elna2ash). Art for Road Safety is the first challenge for safer mobility on the African continent. It will be held in Egypt, Uganda, and Senegal with the purpose to change behaviors and empower young people to raise awareness on road safety through artistic intervention.
Three African artists and influencers will share their talent by creating inspiring content on two road safety issues: observing speed limits and wearing a helmet. The artists selected are Egyptian graffiti artist Elna2Ash, Senegalese graffiti artist Zeinixx, and Ugandan dancer Robert Ssempijja.
The first week will focus on the graffiti art of Elna2ash. Elna2ash is an internationally celebrated artist. His work represents famous Egyptian figures through graffiti in the streets of Downtown Cairo. His message is ”Respect the speed limit and save lives”.
To participate in this week’s challenge, you will need to reinterpret Elna2ash’s graffiti by painting, drawing, or sketching it based on your interpretation. You can do this manually or digitally.
Follow these instructions to join: (1) Take a picture of your artwork or record a video of you creating it to post on your social media channels, (2) Post the artwork in your channels and tag the Coalition, (3) Use the hashtags #ArtforRoadSafety, #StreetsforLife, and #Love30
The next two weeks will feature different artists with different challenges to raise awareness on different road safety issues identified by our local artists. Make sure to follow the Coalition to stay updated on the #ArtforRoadSafety challenge.
“The process of empowerment is endless. We will keep saying that youth lives matter by all means and that no language is better than art to express ourselves and our demands. On the personal level, I was honored and enjoyed each and every step of this project” – Shehab Abou-Zeid, the NADA Foundation, Egypt
Last March 2021, the European Commission launched a call for application for young people to participate in the Youth Sounding Board for International Partnerships. The sounding board will advise the EU Commissioner for international Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, on the relevance and effectiveness of EU external actions when it comes to young people and youth involvement.
The EU Youth Sounding Board Youth empowerment is a top priority for the EU Commissioner and is crucial in establishing and maintaining international partnerships. The EU believes that young people must be involved in shaping and implementing its external actions.
The Youth Sounding Board for International Partnerships will be a space where young people can meaningfully be involved in EU external actions and international cooperation. The board will be composed of 25 members of youth aged 18 to 30 from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the European Union.
Together, the board will create real, fundamental and long-lasting change in how the EU engages with youth in its development cooperation. The members will contribute to making EU actions more participatory, relevant and effective for young people.
The Youth Sounding Board will meet virtually through regular meetings every year. The current members will stay on the board for two years.
Claiming Our Space From the Coalition, Omnia El Omrani (Egypt) and Deepanshu Gupta (India) will join the EU Youth Sounding Board. Omnia and Deepanshu will represent YOURS – Youth for Road Safety and the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety.
Omnia is a part of the Coalition’s Youth Advisory Board. She is a medical doctor and surgery resident at the Ain Shams University Hospital. She is also the Liaison Officer for Public Health Issues for the International Federation of Medical Student’s Association (IFMSA). Omnia represented young people during the 3rdMinisterial Conference on Road Safety where she talked about the Global Youth Statement for Road Safety and the importance of meaningful youth involvement.
Deepanshu is a member of the Global Youth Coalition and currently serves as the vice president for Solve Foundation and is working with the Indian Road Safety Campaign (IRSC). He is in charge of major corporate collaborations, government relations and internal relations and is one of the key people who helped set up IRSC operations in 46 cities across India. Deepanshu has also been mentoring social startups to scale their reach.
Omnia and Deepanshu will support and help raise awareness on road safety and meaningful youth participation within the Youth Sounding Board. They also further the reach and push the Global Youth Statement forward.
Earlier this month, graduates from the Youth Stars programme in collaboration with iRap – International Road Assessment Programme and Star Rating for Schools. During the celebration event, our graduates reflected on their training experience on Star Rating for Schools! Check out our video!
The celebration event gathered the graduates of the Youth Stars programme to look back on their journey about learning and interacting with the Star Rating for Schools methodology and tools.
Master Trainers Alex Ayub, Minh Vo, Daniel Cano, and Shantel Jacobs shared their congratulations with the graduates reminding them that the Youth Stars Programme was just the beginning of their journey to help advocate for roads that do not kill our dreams.
Finally, road safety leaders Floor Lieshout from YOURS, Shane O’Connor from FedEx, and Rafaela Machado from iRap shared their calls to action for the graduates to keep pushing for safer roads in their regions and communities to make sure that no child or student dies needlessly on their way to school.
The Danish Road Safety Council launched a campaign that helps raise awareness of the importance of wearing a helmet. In the campaign, Rådet for Sikker Trafik shows how a Viking needed to wear a helmet to ride his horse for safety. A character went on to say “you can go looting and pillaging all you want, but you have to wear a helmet”.
Euro Weekly News wrote an article called Real Vikings Wear Helmets is the slogan for a Danish bicycle safety campaign. We reproduced the article here:
Rådet for Sikker Trafik pushes the point that in medieval times you wouldn’t hear a Viking say ‘it ruins my hair’ when he needed to wear a helmet on his horse. No excuses. He would just wear it for the sake of safety.
Whether you are a Viking on a journey or a cyclist who is going into traffic, it is good to wear a helmet says Rådet for Sikker Trafik in its new campaign ‘The helmet has always been a good idea’.
“There is a great deal of humor and irony in our new campaign,” Lisbeth Sahl, the senior project manager at Rådet for Sikker Trafik told the Copenhagen Post.
“But behind it is also a message that the excuses we sometimes have for not wearing a bicycle helmet can be a bit silly when we look at how high the price can be if you fall and hit your head.”
The helmet gained popularity from 2015 until 2019, but this increase has stopped in recent years. A new bicycle helmet count shows that now 47 percent of the cyclists in Danish cities wear one.
From 2015-2019, the police have registered 633 cyclists who have either been seriously injured or who have lost their lives as a result of a head injury. In the capital, the most were registered: 249.
According to the campaign, one of the most common reasons for not wearing a helmet is that one has simply not gotten used to cycling with the helmet and therefore forgets it.
Others are vain or find helmets annoying or cumbersome to wear and some feel that they are so good at cycling that they do not need a helmet to protect them or completely drop it on short rides.
Rådet for Sikker Trafik gives four tips to encourage helmet wearing which are;
Buy a nice helmet that fits well
Hang it close to your outerwear or bike so you remember it
Hang it on the bike when you shop
Have a comb in your pocket to straighten your locks when you arrive
