Last Monday, May 17, the 6^th UN Global Road Safety Week was launched on behalf of the UN Road Safety Collaboration. The theme for this year’s UNGRSW is Streets for Life and it raises awareness on the importance of 30 km/h streets. The global launch gathered global road safety leaders and representatives to talk about why low-speed streets are important in road safety and urban design. 

Last Monday, May 17, the 6^th UN Global Road Safety Week was launched on behalf of the UN Road Safety Collaboration. The theme for this year’s UNGRSW is Streets for Life and it raises awareness on the importance of 30 km/h streets. The global launch gathered global road safety leaders and representatives to talk about why low-speed streets are important in road safety and urban design.

Sana’a joined leaders like Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – Director-General of the World Health Organization, Maimuna Mohd Sharif – Executive Director of the UN Human Rights Settlements Programme, Jean Todt – the UN Secretary General’s Envoy for Road Safety, Michael Bloomberg – the WHO Global Ambassador for NCDs and Injuries, and more.

She spoke about why low-speed streets are important for young people as well as the efforts the Coalition is doing to make sure that road safety is prioritized in the global agenda. 

“We are claiming our space and joining Streets for Life campaign to demand lowering speed limits to 30 km/h. We want streets that are safe and dynamic for living. We, the youth, are part of the solution” – Sana’a Khsawneh

Omnia joined a panel that also had leaders like Eike Van den Brandt – Minister of the Government in Brussels, Rob de Jong – Head of Sustainable Mobility from the UN Environment Programme, Stefanie Holzwarth – Urban Mobility Specialist from UN-Habitat, and Mirjam Sidik – Asia Injury Prevention Foundation.

During the panel, Omnia raised awareness on why road safety and the topic of low-speed streets are important for young people. She talked about how young people are often “under-represented” despite being the most affected when it comes to road crashes. 

We need the re-orientation of the decision-making table by prime ministers to provide a sustainable mechanism, not only for youth participation but also the emergence and implementation of youth-led solutions.” – Omnia el Omrani 

The 6^th UN Global Road Safety Week runs from May 17 until May 23. You can still get involved by joining the Coalition activities and other global events. 

UNGRSW GLOBAL EVENTS 

As part of Global Road Safety Week 2021, Child Injury Prevention Alliance with iRAP – International Road Assessment Programme and Star Rating for Schools will hold a webinar on How Communities Can Help Students Get to School Safely. The webinar highlights the 6th UN Global Road Safety Week’s theme: Streets for Life and will help raise awareness on the importance of low-speed streets in communities, especially in school zones. 

The webinar will feature national and global road safety experts discussing the use of the Star Rating for Schools program to improve safety as children travel to and from school.

Star Rating for Schools, which was developed by iRAP, is an evidence-based tool for assessing road elements that affect pedestrian safety encountered by children as they travel to school. It also provides users guidance on appropriate interventions for addressing identified safety risks.

The webinar will be held on Tuesday, May 18 from 1-2 pm Eastern Time and will demonstrate how to use the program, present a case study, provide tips on involving youth, and close with a panel discussion on implementing program recommendations.

Speakers for the webinar include; Rafaela Machado from iRAP/Star Rating for Schools, Torine Creppy from Safe Kids Worldwide, Elizabeth Oestreich from Safe Kids Fargo/Moorhead, and Manpreet Darroch from YOURS – Youth for Road Safety. The session will be moderated by Gary Smith from the Child Injury Prevention Alliance.

By using the Star Rating for Schools program to measure, manage, and communicate the risks that children encounter traveling to school, community groups and individuals can help students get to school and home again safely.

Register to join! 

REGISTER HERE 

Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety member and Vision Zero Youth Council – Rwanda President, Nkumbuye Ami, submitted an article that talks about issues around safer mobility in the newly constructed road that connects Huye and Gisagara District in Rwanda. It also highlights the importance of road infrastructures and reduced speed limits. We reproduced the article here. 

According to the World Health Organization, 1.35 million people die each year due to road traffic crashes and up to 50 million more suffer from non-fatal injuries. It is the leading cause of death in young people aged between 15-29 years old.

Surprisingly most crashes can be prevented if each country develops a good education program focusing on road safety, good road infrastructure that is favorable for vehicles and road users, community awareness on road safety, obeying traffic rules, and strengthening of road safety legislation.

All are key factors that can be considered to decrease road crashes.

In this article, we are going to address some issues that should be considered for safer mobility in the newly constructed road that connect Huye and Gisagara District.

When you start your journey from Huye City to Gisagara, there is a newly constructed road that passes between two secondary schools including Groupe Officiel de Butare School at its start from Huye City. It is a well-designed road that has many zebra crossing that allows road users to cross safely, a 50 km/h road speed limit, sidewalks for pedestrians and a cycling way. 

All these are measures that contribute to decreasing the risk of road crashes.
Health People Rwanda volunteers also evaluated this road focusing on where to improve especially at school zones and advocate for improvement that makes it safer for all road users.

At the school zone mentioned above, we noticed a lack of road humps and that the 50 Km/h speed limit is not appropriate for such a place clouded by students especially at pick and drop hours.

Recently in Toronto, researchers found that on streets where the speed limit lowered from 40km/h to 30km/h there was a 28% reduction in car-pedestrians collisions. 

As we start UN Global Road Safety Week in the coming month, Healthy People Rwanda joins the global road safety community calling for a 30km/h speed limit to become the default speed limit in cities, towns, and villages.

Dr. Nzeyimana Innocent, the president of Healthy People Rwanda said “ As we start a new decade of action, HPR will play a key role in contributing to the decrease of road crashes in Rwanda and the region in partnership with different stakeholders including Rwanda National Police. Our advocacy this year will focus on safer road infrastructures accommodating human errors, especially at school zones and also road safety education. Roads should not be there to kill the dreams of Youth but rather help to accomplish them”.

The Director of the school Groupe Officiel de Butare Charles said “ Last trimester in our district many students died due to road crashes, sadly most of them were avoidable. I really appreciate that we have a good road aside from the schools that really help us as road users but I ask you to advocate for us to have at least road humps and zebra crossings near the school gate. I do believe if we develop a strong educational program and community awareness on road safety as well advocacy like this we would see a significant decrease in the number of injuries and deaths related to road crashes”

We can’t conclude this article without saying that we will keep advocating for safer roads. We also stand with other NGOs across the globe and different partners calling 30km/h to become the default speed limit in cities, towns, and villages in the upcoming UN Global Road safety week to happen on May 17th- 23rd, 2021.

MORE ABOUT HEALTHY PEOPLE RWANDA

The Urban Mobility Company is launching Autonomy Digital 2.0: Moving the Business of Mobility Forward this May 19 to 20, 2021. Autonomy Digital will help bring together the stakeholders involved in sustainable and intelligent mobility. Representatives of YOURS – Youth for Road Safety through the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety will be participating in a panel scheduled on the first day of the event.

Autonomy Digital
Autonomy Digital is heading into its sixth edition this May, and it’s second digital. It is the world’s largest “Business 2 Business” and “Business 2 Government” event that gathers stakeholders like the academe, the press, public and private transport operators, transportation authorities, cities, and more.

The event will include four main elements: the expo, where exhibitors from all over the world present innovative solutions on transportation and mobility in an interactive digital booth format; industry talks, where a virtual conference program will be held to cover the biggest issues around sustainable and urban mobility; demonstrations program, which are webinars dedicated to participants’ commercial pitch and product demonstrations; and the startup program, which will present the most promising new enterprises in the transport sector.

The event will follow eight sectoral themes; active and micro-mobility, shared mobility, ticketing and payments, smart city services, corporate mobility, e-mobility and infrastructure, urban logistics, and AVs and technologies.

Young female leadership on mobility
As part of the Autonomy Digital sessions, the Coalition and other partners will join a session to talk about a sustainable mobility system centered on youth. The session will be called Young Female Leadership on Sustainable Mobility – Saving Lives through Local and Global Action. The panel will be held on 19^th May 2021 from 7 PM to 7:40 PM CET.

The panel will be moderated by Rafaela Machado, Global Project Coordinator of iRAP – International Road Assessment Programme and will feature members of the Coalition; Minh Vo, who is also a Youth Stars Master Trainer, Estiara Ellizar, who also works with the Ministry of Transportation in Indonesia, and Laura Daniela Gómez who is also the Project Coordinator at Despacio. Dilys Mneney, Project Manager of iRAP will also be joining the panel.

Join the conversation by registering! 

REGISTER TO THE EVENT HERE

Last March 2021, YOURS – Youth for Road Safety officially welcomed Michelin Corporate Foundation as a Programme Partner to the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety. The partnership between the Coalition and Michelin Corporate Foundation will invest and support the Coalition’s work to empower youth across the globe. In their annual report, Michelin reiterated the partnership and supported the youth and road safety movement. Our relationship with Michelin goes back all the way to 2009 where Michelin became the Founding Member of the organization. We reproduced the article here:

Road crashes are the leading killer of young adults aged between 15 and 29. Almost 350,000 die each year and 80% of them are males.

To help in fighting this scourge the NGO YOURS (Youth for Road Safety) was set up in 2007. It has grown steadily and in 2010 became an official member of UNRSC (United Nations Road Safety Collaboration), the road safety body attached to the UN. The aim of YOURS is to improve road safety by encouraging thousands of young people known as ‘ambassadors’ and ‘champions’ to take part in preventive actions, to spread information, and mobilize their peers.

Despite increased awareness, the death rate in 2019 remained high. The reasons for this are perfectly clear: not wearing a helmet or seat belt, speed, alcohol, and lots of attention. In this situation, it is more than ever essential to inform young people and, what is more important, involve them in designing solutions.

This priority was recalled at the 2nd World Youth Conference held in Sweden on February 18th, 2020. Jointly organized by YOURS and the World Health Organization, it was a prelude to the third world ministerial conference on road safety arranged by the United Nations. The assembly called for increased efforts to meet new road safety targets between now and 2030 and speed up the transition to safer, cheaper, easier to use, and more sustainable modes of transport.

In July 2020, YOURS launched the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety, a platform bringing together individual members and organizations with the aim of creating momentum to make roads safer. Its objective is to offer resources, skills, partnerships, and opportunities to spread ideas and maximize their impact. Since its creation, 300 members from 76 countries have joined the Coalition.

The Global Youth Statement for Road Safety lists down the demands and commitments of young people over the world to achieve the road safety targets set in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs help define the Coalition’s priorities and guides them on implementing measures that uphold road safety and sustainable transport. These efforts help the global community move closer to the target of halving the number of road-related deaths and injuries by 2030.

As part of the strategies to meet the road safety targets in the global agenda, the Coalition is amplifying its efforts to make road safety more visible by assigning SDG Youth Champions to strengthen the call for safer roads and sustainable mobility according to the goals and targets listed in the Global Youth Statement. 

The SDG Youth Champions will take the lead in enhancing the connection between road safety and the other SDGs through local and global advocacy work. 

Meet our SDG Youth Champions! 

OMNIA EL OMRANI

Omnia represents SDG 3: Health. Under this SDG, she will lead the push to halve road-related deaths and injuries by the year 2030. By meeting the targets under SDG 3, road-related deaths will be avoided and the health system would not be over-burdened by preventable deaths and injuries. 

Omnia is a medical doctor from the IFMSA.

ALEX AYUB

Alex represents SDG 4: Education. He will lead efforts to advocate and implement efforts and campaigns for safer school zones and three-star roads. Safer school zones and three-star roads help ensure safer journeys for students all over the world.

Alex works with the Kenya Red Cross as the National Youth Officer.

Thiago Gruner

Thiago represents SDG 4: Education. He will lead the efforts and champion initiatives to promote peer education and discuss the importance of observing road safety rules.

Thiago is a volunteer of the Vida Urgente program and serves as the International Relations and Youth representative. He is also a filmmaker.

OLIVIA NALWADDA

Olivia represents SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities. She will lead efforts to petition for more meaningful youth representation in road safety decision-making. Olivia will also amplify the call for safe and sustainable transport for vulnerable road users.

Olivia is the founder of UZIMA ARI Uganda.

RITU JAIN

Ritu represents SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities. She will lead the fight for womenʼs rights to move safely and free of prejudices. Ritu will advocate and help raise awareness on the importance of safe and sustainable transport, especially for women, children, and other vulnerable road users. 

Ritu works with Restless Development as its accountability advocate.

ALISON COLLARD DE BEAUFORT

Alison represents SDG 11: Sustainable Cities. She will lead and support the call to put vulnerable road users first in city design. Creating sustainable cities means communities that are green, healthy, and liveable.

Alison is the founder and executive director of the Vision Zero Youth Council (VZYC).

ESTEBAN PAREDES

Esteban represents SDG 11: Sustainable Cities. He will lead and support efforts to press decision-makers to invest in safer and sustainable infrastructure and vehicles. A good transport system means healthier and more liveable communities.

Esteban is the Global Network Coordinator of Fundación Cavat.

ESTIARA ELLIZAR

Estiara represents SDG 11: Sustainable Cities. She will lead and support the call to put vulnerable road users first in city design. Creating sustainable cities means communities that are green, healthy, and liveable.

Estiara is an iRAP Accredited Suppliers on coding and analysis.

SOUMITA CHAKRABORTY

Soumita represents SDG 13: Climate Action. She will lead and support efforts for safe and sustainable transport that is clean and green as a way to combat the climate crisis. This supports young people’s demand to “let us breathe!”

Soumita works on climate change adaptation, urban planning, disaster management, and public health.

OMNIA EL OMRANI

Omnia represents SDG 13: Climate Action. She will lead and support efforts for safe and sustainable transport that is clean and green as a way to combat the climate crisis. This supports young people’s demand to “let us breathe!”

Omnia is a medical doctor from the IFMSA and a strong advocate for climate action and public health.

DOWNLOAD THE GLOBAL YOUTH STATEMENT FOR ROAD SAFETY