18th February is the date for the 2nd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety taking place in Stockholm, Sweden. n official pre-event of the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety.

The Assembly will feature a full-day of programming that brings together young advocates, campaigners, and change-agents who are committed to combating road traffic injuries. The Assembly will explore road safety and crosscutting solutions to challenge the number one cause of death for youth (aged 15-29). It will be action-oriented, intergenerational, and inclusive, with the representation of young leaders from all over the world.

We have been working hard alongside our Global Youth Taskforce for Road Safety to ensure the Youth Assembly is youth-driven, youth-orientated and will inspire the next generation of young leaders in road safety.

We strive for a bottom-up approach where young people are in charge of their own agenda. A powerful group of young people from around the globe, with different backgrounds, have assembled to part of the Global Youth Taskforce.

The Taskforce derives partly from the strong YOURS network of youth leaders for road safety and partly from other youth networks such as the UN Youth System and other relevant youth-led NGOs (such as Restless Development, Kenya Red Cross, IFMSA etc.). These young leaders were selected through a competitive recruitment process. The Global Youth Taskforce is in charge of leading the content and promotion of the Assembly.

The Global Youth Taskforce is made up of young volunteers and professionals, many of whom have been personally affected by road traffic crashes, motivating them to take charge of advocacy campaigns and programmes to improve road safety in their communities. They understand the gravity of the issue as a public health concern and work in fields which will benefit from safer and more sustainable mobility, such as sustainable cities, safe schools, climate emergency, and youth rights and empowerment.

“Young people are stepping up to the plate to say ‘enough is enough’ to their peers, family, and friends dying on the world’s roads. Road traffic crashes remain the biggest killer of young people globally and it is time we shift the paradigm that young people are ‘problem road users’ to showing that young people can be active change agents and assets for road safety.

The World Youth Assembly is entirely youth-led. It has been organized by the Global Youth Taskforce who is in charge of all elements of the programme, branding, promotion, selection of delegates, and artistic inputs. The Assembly will bring together up to 200 young leaders from across the world to tackle the biggest public health threat to their lives through cross-cutting solutions and will be action-oriented, inter-generational, and inclusive. We will be #ClaimingOurSpace for safe mobility and at the decision-making table”.

Every young person attending the Assembly will have engaged with other young people in their communities through youth consultations, so are deeply rooted in their communities and cities, and will act as champions for road safety in their respective countries. They will come from all over the world, and from a range of backgrounds, including civil society, academia, the private sector, and the government sector. As a whole, those attending the Assembly represent different experiences and realities in terms of safer mobility, and represent a collective voice for road safety.

The Assembly will take place on 18 February 2020, on the eve of the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, and will feature a full day of programming that brings together young advocates, campaigners, and change-agents who are committed to combating road traffic death and injury. Participants will be empowered with new knowledge, skills and resources which will enable them to build a roadmap and take local action through advocacy and campaigning. The event will provide attendees with the opportunity to connect with current decision-makers and build partnerships.

A Global Youth Statement on Road Safety will be one of the outcomes of the Assembly, which will then be presented at the Ministerial Conference as well as a newly formed Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety.

READ MORE ABOUT THE ASSEMBLY AT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Tragically, road traffic injuries are reaching crisis proportions globally and we lose over 1.35 million people and seriously injure many millions more every year. Road trauma does not affect everyone equally, with inequalities seen between world regions and a death rate 3 times higher in low-income countries (where progress appears to have stalled) compared to high-income countries. It affects greatly the most vulnerable in our communities, our children and young people, as well as the most vulnerable on our roads, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. This all paints a picture of why road trauma is still very much a public health concern.

Young people from across the world have been engaging in Youth Consultations for the 2nd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety! The Youth Consultations create a space for young people to come together, reflect discuss their futures.

We want to hear your proposed solutions to transform our area into safer and sustainable spaces, considering topics such as health, environment, human rights, equality, poverty and other issues related to road safety and mobility. What issues do you face on the road? What could make your journeys safer? What needs to change?

Young people from India recently completed a Youth Consultation using the simple Step-by-Step Guide. We caught up with consultation leader Soumita Chakraborty to get insight into how the consultation was set up and what made it successful.

Where did you conduct your Youth Consultation?  
Of the 2 youth consultations I had, although both of them were in the Badarpur region in South East district of Delhi (India), the one with community youth was conducted in the community park itself, whereas the one with Youth Facilitators of Restless Development, was held in the Badarpur Youth Resource Centre (YRC) of the organization.

Where did you find your participants?
Since I am working with Restless Development, a youth-led organization, I work with a network of community level youth leaders through some of the programmes that I co-manage with my colleagues. I was able to connect with young people passionate about working towards road safety within the age group of 18-29 years for the consultation through our Youth Facilitators (community youth leaders).

How did you bring them together?
I had a round of discussion with other programme team members managing our community young leaders, project officer in the field and her team on the World Youth Assembly, its importance, about the youth consultation and criteria of young people that we are looking for. They brought together the groups based on my indicated criteria, on the days of youth consultation.

What were the major issues identified by the group?
The groups identified more than 3 issues that they feel are being faced by young people when it comes of transit system and safe mobility in India. They are as follows:

• Lack of inclusiveness in the existing transport system- Neither are the pedestrian paths, roadways, over-bridges or underpasses accessible to people with special needs (which restricts them to personal vehicles and increases their dependability on family members)  nor do they ensure safety to women at all times of the day.
• Lack of cameras in highways or high speeding zones- Although this service is available in major parts of capital city, it isn’t the case in smaller or inner lanes and smaller towns.
• Underage driving is rampant in parts of the city- This is due to parents’ encouragement to help their children learn driving early in their adolescent years, without understanding the consequences of underage driving. Although the law is strictly followed in most of the city, driving without a license in teenage years is quite rampant within community lanes and smaller inner roadways. These sometimes being more populated colonies, more often than not, puts the driver and localites at risk.
• Lack of patience among people driving- Although not applicable to most areas, there are parts of the city as well as the city where pedestrian pathways and footpaths are used by two-wheelers to speed up and avoid heavy traffic. Similarly, in the absence of traffic police within a small stretch of road, to avoid a longer route for U-Turn, cars and other motor vehicles also drive in the wrong direction, with passengers.
• Lack of emergency corridors for ambulance and fire brigades
• Differential laws to ensure safe mobility, when it comes to ministers and general public.

What were the solutions identified?
Installation of more cameras within a shorter distance to ensure that all roads are covered and regular maintenance or changing of the old ones.

• Generate awareness among people to use more of public transport than private vehicles, particularly in the recent times, which is witnessing an unprecedented growth in ownership of multiple private vehicles by each household. This is increasing the congestion and pollution level, along with encroachment of more and more built up area for road ways. It is a vicious circle.
• Generate awareness among parents to prevent them from encouraging their children to take up underage driving, even if that is restricted to their neighborhood lanes.
•  Strict implementation of rules in all neighborhoods, bylanes and inner lanes, instead of only the major roads and highways.
• Need to revise the traffic rules to align them to the current scenario and needs. Eg- some of the revisions on fine for breaking traffic rules need to be made widespread to ensure that everyone follows them.
• Need for decision and policy makers to rework on the planning of existing urban infrastructure and facilities available, to ensure emergency corridors and provisions of safety for all vulnerable population

What went well?  
These young people belonging to different parts of North India, spoke of not only their immediate neighborhood or area, but of issues faced by young people in India at large. They also spoke from their personal experience, where some of them lost their family members to road accidents, others have close acquaintances who were perpetrators of ill practices that put other road users at danger or themselves were caught several times flouting the rules and learnt their lessons the hard way.

What was the youth’s commitment to safe mobility?
As a group, they committed to work at their individual capacity to promote behavior change among their friends and family that ensures road safety for all. They also agreed to have a discussion in their respective communities on what I informed them about the work being done globally to mitigate road accidents and injuries at various levels, to generate awareness and a comprehensive understanding of severity and importance of road safety.

Top tips for other young people wanting to conduct youth consultations?
Road safety isn’t something new. Issues related to transportation and safety concerns is something each and every young person faces or had faced at some point. It is something everyone can relate to and can also provide meaningful solutions to, as it is related to their day to day life. So it will be a great experience trying to understand and bring out differential or similar issues and stories faced by young people. You will be amazed to see how much they are aware of the importance of it and willing to take part in ensuring safety for all.

Any final words about the consultation? Did you enjoy it?
It was a good experience, where very different point of views emerged due to the group’s diverse background. There were also implications of gender specific safety concerns.

INSPIRED? TAKE PART IN THE YOUTH CONSULTATIONS

In a final review visit to the project, that took place in November 2016, the group illustrated ambition and a desire to continue in their work and were eager to build upon their current organizational structure.

The leadership of BYRS (Belizean Youth for Road Safety) expressed a desire to grow in terms of membership, to strengthen their organizational structure, to develop further partnerships and fundraising activities, and develop the resources they can offer. They have worked on a strategic plan that should lead BYRS towards becoming a sustainable organization; they seek advice and support to help operationalize the process.

YOURS will be supporting the organization in the new project and help increase the impact of the young leaders in the years to come.

In 2019 a new project is being undertaken with the Government of Belize, the Caribbean Development Bank and Amend. The project focuses on:

• MASTER TRAINERS TRAINING
  With young the young leaders trained in the first phase of the project. These facilitators will take their work to the next level to become Master Trainers, with the ability to train other young people.

• TRAINING OF FACILITATORS
  Led by the Master Trainers and with support from YOURS to identify a new target of reaching thousands of young people across the country and bolstering the work of BYRS – Belizean Youth for Road Safety.
• SAFE SCHOOL ZONES ASSESSMENT
  By working with young people to identify a school to be improved using SARSAI (Amend)  and SR4S (iRAP) methodology.

The Assembly will feature a full-day of programming that brings together young advocates, campaigners, and change-agents who are committed to combating road traffic injuries. The Assembly will explore road safety and crosscutting solutions to challenge the number one cause of death for youth (aged 15-29). It will be action-oriented, intergenerational, and inclusive, with representation of young leaders from all over the world.