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We will be live from Leipzig, Germany for the International Transport Summit

by Youth For Road Safety | Dec 30, 2023 | News & Blog

The 2018 Summit on “Transport Safety and Security” will address issues ranging from terrorism and cyber-security to road safety and extreme weather disruption, including the risks and benefits of automated driving. Safety and security are core concerns for transport.

A transport system that is safe and secure enables passengers to travel without fear and allows businesses to ship goods reliably and efficiently. Enhancing transport safety and security is also an essential element in the implementation of two major international agreements, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement.

The ITF Summit is the world’s largest gathering of transport ministers and the premier global transport policy event. The Summit will take place from 23 to 25 May 2018 in Leipzig, Germany. Around 1400 decision-makers from more than 80 countries are expected to attend, including more than three dozen ministers. Participants come from governments, business, international organisations and academia.

Panel session: Raising awareness for safer, more secure mobility

We will be taking part in a panel session at theInernational Transport Forum focusing on safer and more secure mobility. This session will feature examples of some of the most effective safety and security information and education campaigns. Public awareness campaigns influence people’s habits and perceptions – often via an emotional angle, sometimes with a focus on children – leading to a safer, more secure mobility.

Key facts:

1.3 million people die in road crashes every year
Crashes are the leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds
76% of traffic fatalities are males
Collisions with a vehicle travelling at 50 km/hr are 85% likely to cause fatal injuries to pedestrians or cyclists

Lead questions:

Which data is collected to measure the success of a campaign?
Do safe system principles apply to awareness campaigns?
How to articulate education campaigns with new regulations and with enforcement?

Speakers for the panel include:


David Cliff CEO, Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP)	Karola Lambeck Head of the Cycling and Road Safety Taskforce, Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Germany	Floor Lieshout Founder/Director YOURS – Youth for Road Safety	Emma MacLennan Founder and Director, Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST)

Mohammed Mezghani Secretary General, International Association of Public Transport (UITP)	Ketil Solvik-Olsen Minister of Transport and Communications, Norway	Suzanna Zammataro Executive Director International Road Federation (IRF)	Ali Aslan (Moderator) TV Host and Journalist

The event takes place on 23 May12:30 – 14:00 Hall 3, Level +1 in Leipzig, Germany.

You can be sure to be kept updated about the event by following us on Twitter or follow the hastag #ITF18

VISIT THE ITF WEBSITE

Read about our ground breaking multi-award winning workshops!

by Youth For Road Safety | Dec 30, 2023 | News & Blog

We use our years of expertise in workshop delivery to develop the capacities of young people in the field of road safety. With global experiences from Belize, Cambodia, Kenya, Niger, Oman, Saint Lucia, South Africa and the USA, YOURS is able to provide youth-friendly, highly interactive and dynamic workshops for young people.

These workshops have big impact on the lives of young people are create robust youth action to reduce road traffic crashes amongst 15-29 year olds.

From Africa to the Caribbean, Europe to Asia, our workshops resonate with young people everywhere. This is because every training is placed within a local context, real life stories as well as embedding concepts within the local youth culture of a country. Our trainings are universally accepted and we see the same results everywhere they have been delivered.Our workshops have been described as some of the most creative and innovative road safety experiences out there. We have done away with the ‘sit down listen and take notes’ approach.

Our trainings are as creative, diverse and energetic as our youth participants themselves.

With global experiences from Belize, Cambodia, Kenya, Oman and Saint Lucia, YOURS is able to provide youth-friendly, highly interactive and dynamic workshops for young people. The programme builds on the Youth and Road Safety Action, which is recognized globally as a ‘brilliant introduction to global road safety’ by WHO and CDC.

We take complex road safety concepts and present them in a way that speaks to young people’s own reality. Our trainings use creative activities such as music, art, expression, role-play and real life demonstrations that give young people a unique insight into the world of road safety issues. Engaging young people is our speciality and our mission is to create a generation of skilled road safety champions. Coupling theory with creativity, engagement with knowledge and peer-messaging with tangible action, our participants are able to grasp road safety topics in way that empowers and educates.

Multi-Award Winning!
In June 2015, our workshops were awarded the ‘Best Road Safety Initiative Award’ as part of the 2014 Fundacion MAPFRE Social Awards. These international awards recognize people and institutions that have made outstanding contributions for the benefit of society. In 2015, there were over 450 nominations for Best Road Safety Initiaive, which was awarded to YOURS. The Award came with a grant of 30,000 euros. Her Majesty Queen Sofía of Spain chaired the Award Ceremony on the 18th of June at the prestigious Casino of Madrid and officially handed over the award to YOURS.

Our workhops were selected via a rigorous process of reviewing our materials, method of engagement, unique resources and the impact they have made on the lives of young people all around the world.

In December 2017, our workshops were awarded the prestigious Prince Michael International Road Safety Award, making our work multi-award winning.

The awards for our workshops recognize the unique and innovative way in which we engage with young people. Booking a YOURS training comes with a royal seal of approval.

“Heroes drive in pajamas” – youth campaign wins Golden Award in Solvenia

by Youth For Road Safety | Dec 30, 2023 | News & Blog

We recently featured the campaign, “Heroes drive in pajamas”, a campaign targeting young drivers in Solvenia. The campaign focuses on encouraging young people to be picked up from nights out, even if their parents are in pajamas. The innovative campaign shared the responsibiity of young people getting home safely, focused primarily on youth who have been drinking or are under the influence of other substances.

“Heroes drive in pajamas” receives a Golden Award at SOF (Slovenian Advertising Festival)

Photo (Žiga Intihar): Receiving the golden award for the initiative “Heroes drive in pajamas”.

The glamorous awards ceremony is already 27 years old. The Slovenian Advertising Festival (SOF) has awarded a Golden Award in group “direct communication for the initiative of reducing drink driving among youth” to Heroes drive in pajamas by Zavod VOZIM and partners; insurance company Generali zavarovalnica, Toyota S.

Improved road traffic safety among youth in Slovenia
The project “Heroes drive in pajamas” was a result of integrated cooperation of all national and local co-creators from the area of road traffic safety and public health. Results reflected in improved road traffic safety among youth (aged 15 – 24) in 2017 comparing to the year 2016:

by 28% reduction of DUI among youth,
by 27% reduction of road traffic accidents due to alcohol, caused by young drivers.*

The year 2017 was, from the point of view of road traffic safety, one of the most successful in the last 60 years, but claim they still need to work more on this, in order to improve the level of road traffic safety even more. Please have a look at how we contributed to this.

Source Police, Ministry of the Interior (Republic of Slovenia)

Case video “Heroes drive in pajamas”

Future plans
Zavod Vozim started with the holistic initiative last year in three Slovenian regions. The structured dialogue between the youth and the ones responsible for road traffic safety and in the local area, Slovenian Traffic Safety Agency (AVP) and National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ), led to the implementation of concrete proposals for improving the road traffic safety among youth.

The emphasis was also on activating the parents with driving in pajamas for the wider safety of their children.

In the year 2018, heroes are moving forward to next regions, for our purpose is to visit the whole Slovenia! Take a look at where they are going this year:

Regions in 2017: Savinja, Gorizia, Lower Sava
Regions in 2018: Carinthia, Mura, Upper Carniola, Littoral-Inner Carniola

We can all be heroes and contribute to improving road traffic safety among youth! How? With a heroic example in the middle of the night pick up our children and their friends and with that take care of their safety (and the safety of others).

New UN Resolution: Improving Global Road Safety specifically mentions youth

by Youth For Road Safety | Dec 30, 2023 | News & Blog

Stressing that road traffic deaths and injuries remained a major public health and development problem with broad social and economic consequences, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a draft resolution titled “Improving global road safety”, cautioning that, if left unaddressed, the current situation could affect progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Assembly also recognized the economic toll such deaths had on developing countries, with costs for some countries adding up to 5 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) per year, making the reduction of road traffic deaths and injuries both an economic and a social priority.

Underscoring the gravity of the issue, Amina Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, said that, as the number one cause of deaths among young people, road traffic deaths and injuries had become a global cause of concern. She called for measures to counter the rise in road traffic fatalities, including the recently established United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund, which was an opportunity to ensure synergy and coordination action on the ground and ultimately save lives.

Introducing the draft text, the representative of the Russian Federation said deaths and injuries resulting from road traffic accidents had a negative impact on socioeconomic progress and sustainable development. While steps taken by the international community had yielded positive results, more remained to be done, he said, noting that the resolution focused on strengthening multilateral cooperation for the benefit of reducing road traffic injuries.

The representative of the United Kingdom highlighted that;

In the twenty-first century,more than 20 million people had been killed and seriously injured in road accidents around the world.

That was far too high a price to pay for our essential mobility. Citing his country’s successful experience enforcing the use of seatbelts, he said that, as the result of educational campaigns, seatbelt usage today stood at more than 94 per cent and many lives had been saved.

The UN resolution placed a specific focus on young people as vulnerable road users. Specifc references were made in points 18 and 28:

18. Urges Member States to implement road safety policies for the protection of vulnerable persons among road users, in particular children, youth, older persons and persons with disabilities, in line with relevant United Nations legal instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Childand the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities;

28. Reiterates its invitation to Governments to take a leading role in implementing activities in support of the global voluntary performance targets on road safety risk factors and service delivery mechanisms, as well as road safety-related targets in the 2030 Agenda, while fostering multisectoral and multi-stakeholder collaboration that includes the efforts of academia, the private sector, professional associations and civil society, including national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, and encouraging further partnership activities and initiatives, such as the Global Road Safety Partnership, hosted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and those of other non-governmental organizations, as well as victims’ organizations, youth organizations and the media;

DOWNLOAD THE UN RESOLUTION

READ MORE ABOUT THE UNRSC

Brian’s Column: The voices of youth and survivors at African symposium

by Youth For Road Safety | Dec 30, 2023 | News & Blog

Did you think we had all unanimously retired from bringing you the voices of youth and road safety from Africa? Probably…but no. There has been a lot going on! You may have read about our successful participation in delivering of the Alliance Advocates African region training in Nairobi, Kenya but you haven’t read about the East African Injury Symposium that took place in Kampala, Uganda yet right?

Our Anglophone Africa Region Coordinator Brian Mwebaze Kanaahe, as always brings us to speed on what took place.

The East African Injury Symposium that appeared as #InjurySymposium2018 on social media platforms was organized by The Johns Hopkins University-Makerere University Chronic Consequences of Trauma, Injuries and Disability in Uganda (Chronic-TRIAD) Program in March 2018 in Kampala, Uganda. The goal was to bring together leading researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and activists working in the field of injury prevention in East Africa to share their research and experience and discuss solutions to the growing burden of injuries in the region.

Brian attends the East African Injury Symposium

Participation of young people and young people who are survivors of road traffic crashes formed a key talking point of the summit. Brenda Areto, a young person, now limited to movement on a wheel chair provided by the Spinal Association of Uganda was not any different from us. She loved sports, walked long distances to school and had big dreams. She narrated her ordeal how on that fateful day, she got involved in a road traffic crash. The following lines she dropped during the symposium touched everyone’s bone marrow and will always be fresh in my mind.

“I was knocked from behind in 2010 while on a boda (Motocycle) by a car, I sus

tained paralysis in lower body. I was 2nd year student at Makerere University

“Drunk first responders with no training in EMS responded to me . There was no anaethesist in hospital for a week”

“Uganda has one Injury spinal unit in Mulago. No rehabilitation centre to reduce dependency on anyone eg wheel chairs, skill development, economically challenging making you a liability”

“We need to find ways of engaging and working with everyone particulalry young road users to keep everybody safe and I mean everybody on the road”

She dismissed the common notion of numbers of road fatalities…

“Every number counts. We’re talking about someone’s wife, child, husband, friend”

The Road Traffic and Injury Research Network had a funny way of announcing the presence of Jean Todt “We interrupt normal tweeting to introduce @JeanTodt UN Special Envoy for #RoadSafety who just dropped in #InjurySymposium2018 b4 visiting @KagutaMuseveni !”

Jean Todt delivered a support speech calling for participation of all stakeholders, funding, safe systems approach and went to meet @KagutaMuseveni :-That’s the President of Uganda where he presented Road Safety Performance Review Report that focused on Uganda’s Road Safety Management, Vehycles, Infrastructure, Road User Behaviour and Post Crash Care.

The UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt meets with dignitaries at the symposium.

Overall, it was a practical, participatory summit that drew experiences from Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya. The in school young people who participated vowed to organize a zebra crossing painting session, speed bumps and connecting with the Uganda Red Cross Society for continuous support. They have already done the latter: a road safety session, and a road safety club launched. We look forward to more energy, more actions

FOLLOW BRIAN ON TWITTER

25th meeting of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration this week in NYC

by Youth For Road Safety | Dec 30, 2023 | News & Blog

The United Nations Road Safety Collaboration is an informal consultative mechanism whose members are committed to road safety efforts and in particular to the implementation of the recommendations of the World report on road traffic injury prevention.

The goal of the Collaboration is to facilitate international cooperation and to strengthen global and regional coordination among UN agencies and other international partners to implement UN General Assembly resolutions and the recommendations of the world report thereby supporting country programmes.

The 25th Meeting ofthe United Nations Road Safety Collaboration (UNRSC) takes place on 12-13 April 2018 at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, USA.

Meeting objectives:
1. launch the United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund.
2. discuss implementation of the UNGA resolution.
3. discuss current and future activities of the UNRSC project groups.
4. review membership requests and provide updates on UNRSC partner activities.

YOURS Executive Director, Floor Lieshout will be in attendance to the meeting. YOURS is an official member of the UNRSC. Part of our role will be to liaise with our global partners, plan for the next UN Global Road Safety Week taking place next year and crucially, represent the global youth voice for road safety at the United Nations.

About the UNRSC
In April 2004, the UN General Assembly resolution A/RES58/289 on “Improving global road safety” invited WHO, working in close cooperation with the UN regional commissions, to act as coordinator on road safety issues across the UN system. The World Health Assembly accepted this invitation in May 2004 and WHO subsequently set up the UN Road Safety Collaboration (UNRSC) which holds biannual meetings to discuss global road safety issues.