We recently returned from a great youth and road safety workshop in Iceland. We partnered with national search and rescue organization Landsbjörg, who often attend to road traffic crashes as part of their work. Through their ‘Youth Units’, young people from across the country working with Landsbjörg, joined us for a special workshop after their 2019 Safety Conference.

At the Slysavarnir 2019 conference, Manpreet delivered a keynote presentation on ‘Meaningful Youth Participation in Road Safety’, and focused on how young people are valuable partners for positive development in reducing road traffic crashes in their communities and countries. He gave the case study of Belize and shared the principles of meaningful youth participation in creating more responsive, better reflective and more effective youth programmes and policies in addressing road safety.

Landsbjörg partnered with YOURS to deliver a unique youth and road safety workshop. “Traffic Crashes are the leading cause of deaths of young people aged 15-29 worldwide and it is important that young people are self-aware and participate in responding to the road safety crisis facing youth as well as finding solutions”.

The workshop was conducted in the signature YOURS style and had the following learning objectievs:

By the end of the workshop participants were able to:

1. Explain the road safety crisis facing young people globally and in their country.
2. Identify a key risk factor in road safety; drink and drug driving and demonstrate new knowledge on the issue.
3. Understand peer education for road safety and some of the activities you can start in the Youth Units at Landsbjörg.

“YOURS has run workshops around the world, run campaigns, and has tremendous experience leading youth work in traffic safety”, Jónas Guðmundsson, Project Manager for Accident Prevention at Landsbjörg.

Twenty young people attended the workshop, many of the youth departments at Landsbjörg sent their representatives from across the coutry. After undergoing an intensive day of road safety interaction, the young people undertook a creative action planning session and pledged to take action in working with other young people in their areas.

MORE ON WORKSHOPS AT YOURS

At the heart of every global threat is a failure of leadership. This new generation is the most informed, most educated, most connected generation in human history. One Young World identifies, promotes and connects the world’s most impactful young leaders to create a better world, with more responsible, more effective leadership.

This year, YOURS were invited to join the event through the sponsorship of the Total Foundation. Our Head of Communications Manpreet Darroch will be attending the conference on behalf of YOURS. He has been with the organization since its first inception idea at the First World Youth Assembly for Road Safety back in 2007. The summit, being the biggest youth summit in the world focuses on a range of topics from youth empowerment, climate change, peace and reconciliation to making a change in a digital world.

Manpreet said, “It’s an amazing opportunity to attend this awe-inspiring event! I’m really looking forward to meeting youth leaders from around the world and learning from young people who are doing incredible work. My mission will be to represent road safety and safe mobility at the summit and learn from the distinguished delegates.

We are living in exciting times where young people have never been better equipped to tackle global issues. It’s happening in the most innovative ways around the world and this event really shows that young people are at the forefront of positive change, rejecting the old paradigms that youth are not engaged”.

Some parts of the event will be live-streamed here and you can, of course, follow our live streams from the event at our Twitter profile!

There will be some incredible activities happening across London that will illustrate the power of youth to take action! Be sure to follow the action following the hashtag #OYW2019.

Check out the One Young World Website

Brian is back with his  regular columns of road safety through the eyes of a young person in Africa. He asks the question, Why do our leaders rarely take public road transport? Hear his take on all things African Road Safety.

“Dude!’’ he hurled, “This is the dumbest question I have ever heard you ask”. That was the response my friend Charles (Full names: Charles aka The Top Shooter) gave on our way to watch Fast and Furious Hobbs and Shaw. The story of how he earned this strange name shall be told another day but I can guarantee one thing and one thing only; nothing illegal is involved. We’re both ardent fans and have previously been diagnosed with a new viral infection called Fasta and Furiousa. 

We booked a 7:15pm show and drove to the Cinema. We’d barely done 4km than an ant-count of vehicles appeared on our side mirrors flashing those scary lights you have seen in a horror movie. Traffic was, like One Direction would say “paralysed’’. We couldn’t move any longer. We became certain as day and night that we were never catching our movie. May be we should have left our car behind as well and jogged, I wondered.

Then, a smartly dressed policeman, beckoned us to drive, releasing traffic at once even when the traffic light signalled red. This isn’t new phenomenon by the way. There is hooting from everything that moves. The driver behind us is screaming ontop of his lungs, the motorcyclists are at a hair’s breadth off my side mirror, pedestrians are struggling to cross to the other side of the road, in the process rubbing their whatever-they-are-carrying against my car, a hawker is trying to sell me a chicken. The sound of break neck speed engine pistons is everywhere, but hallelujah! It’s a miracle! Somehow, we’re driving, and no one has been run over. After about 200m, we again find ourselves cursing between our teeth, as the traffic took its toll. This is a daily routine for most people. Charles, bless him, he hasn’t quite managed the art and science of holding his tongue.

“Ono Sitane abadde ani?’’ (loosely translated, Who the hell was that?), he managed to ask one of the already resigned drivers. The driver responded without looking at him, “Bakulembezze bbo”’ (Literally, your political leaders). A moment of dead-silence passed between myself and Charles. That’s when I broke it with THAT infamous question. It wasn’t a smart question but I had asked anyway.

But of course, public transport in most of our countries is not prioritised. As a matter of concern, the society is unforgiving to leaders and managers who don’t drive. They’re referred to as broke, poor, mean <delete where applicable>. Public transport is probably the most unreliable option you would consider. Quite simply, people take public transport because they can’t afford private means.

The chronic delays, hygiene, recklessness, poor conditions of the vehicle, risk of speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs:-and yes, these can happen in private cars, but atleast, there is a higher level of control to monitor what your driver is doing. Our leaders don’t experience these challenges, so they assume (wrongly) that they don’t exist. While they are croozing in V8s, they never really feel the potholes and poorly maintained roads. They never get asked to show their driving licenses and forced to pay some ‘lunch’ even when you got everything in place. They seem to be immune to the challenge of giving first aid to an injured person without a first aid kit in a car. And yes of course, they don’t feel the excruciating pain of spending more time in a traffic jam than we spend at work. (Sometimes).

I read an article years ago, about why our leaders are busy and so don’t have time to waste on the road. Mind you, most of these leaders are not protected by the Country Traffic and Road Safety Law to grant them right of way. So, we aint busy? One can argue, the real reason they don’t take public transport is because there is no public transport in the first place. What shall happen if we get the same number of cars as the population in this city? No wait, we shall expand the roads. This is already happening, but it doesn’t solve congestion in most cities. If anything, it encourages more traffic. Oh, there is another idea, government makes cars more expensive. Yep, that works, but then, how shall people do businesses? Increasingly, smarter countries are investing in public transport to curb down on carbon emissions, encourage non-motorised transport, providing jobs for especially the young people and getting their leaders to use public transport! Heck, why is this so freaking hard to do here. Did we make it to the movie on time? Ask me on Twitter, I’ll let you know.

FOLLOW BRIAN ON TWITTER

We have been working on a brand new event website for the 2nd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety. his website is a one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about the Assembly.

Young leaders from across the world will gather to take action on their biggest public health threat of their time; road traffic crashes.  Together, we will be #ClaimingOurSpace for safer mobility and at the decision-making table!

Want to attend the 2nd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety? We’d love to see you in Sweden! There are a number of events taking place before, during and after the Assembly.

We have split these activities into the following phases:

1. Pre-Assembly (Before 18th Feb 2020)

2. During the Assembly (18th Feb 2020)

3. After the Assembly (After 18th Feb 2020)

We are inviting young people from all across the world, from all walks of life and all sorts of different backgrounds to attend!

VISIT THE WYA WEBSITE

TWITTER FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM