News & Blog Archives - Page 59 of 185

Call for Proposals Open: Development of a Road Safety Education Resource

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

Together with Michelin Corporate Foundation and Fondation d’entreprise Total, GRSP has launched a Call for Proposals for the development of an innovative educative resource (tool kit) that can address the key road safety issues affecting 10 to 18-year olds globally, while facilitating the development of partnerships with Education Ministries and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in education.

This Call for Proposals comprises the complete design, development, field testing, refinement and production of a modular, and multi-layered road safety resource which can be easily tailored to local conditions for global deployment.

The two foundations wish to capitalize on lessons learned from earlier programmes, new global evidence and crash data and to acknowledge changes and new trends in road safety strategy and education, with the development of a multi-layered road safety intervention targeting children aged 10 to 18. This being ‘the Resource’ and the primary output of this project.
In defining the nature of this Resource, the partners recognize:

the need for finding new educative solutions while conserving a base of “traditional” knowledge in tackling the key themes related to safer road user behaviours.
the opportunity to work with educative authorities in order to have a real quantitative impact and greater sustainability.
that although Road Safety Education takes place mainly in schools for the younger age groups, it may also be implemented in different ways in the community (ex: in sport clubs, via mobile phone applications etc).

The two foundations want to contribute to the improvement of road safety for 10-18-year-olds, however recognize that due to different stages of maturity and exposure, intervention strategies for this age group will most likely require two distinct modules, one intervention strategy designed for children 10-14 and another targeting those aged 14-18.

GET MORE INFORMATION FROM THE GRSP WEBSITE

Belize: where youth take the lead on awareness – one catchy jingle at a time!

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

Belize is a leading example of how young people, who have been empowered by skills and knowledge can go on to build massive awareness across the country. In 2015 and 2016 we trained 34 young leaders in road safety. From understanding the road safety crisis facing youth in Belize to the action and steps they can take to make a difference. Since then, we have seen continuous action, endless creative output.

Belize continues to see a generation of youth growing up listening to catchy road safety jingles championed by their peers as well being exposed first hand to road safety peer-education through in school workshops.

One of our massive successes in capacity development and empowering youth is the two-year programme established in partnership with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Government of Belize (GOBZ).

Having seen our ground breaking workshops in action at the VYBZING Forum in Saint Lucia, CDB approached YOURS to help them reach their goals to educate and inspire young people to take road safety action in Belize. These efforts were part of the Bank’s wider all-encompassing road safety project, which focuses on improving Belize’s infrastructure, emergency response, enforcement and education.

YOURS realized this mission by establishing a strong partnership with the government, universities, youth groups and media and to train 34 young facilitators over two years. We trained two cohorts, one in 2014 – one in 2015, and took young leaders from Belize through the full YOURS interactive workshop experience. These facilitators successfully trained a further 2000+ youth in road safety by the end of 2015.

Since then, the youth have reached over 3000 young people in school trainings as well as created a selection of well-produced, catchy and culturally relevant interventions such as radio spots, tv adverts, public service announcements (PSAs) and a range of other creative outputs. The group became registered organization BYRS – Belizean Youth for Road Safety and have continued to promote road safety in the country.

Their latest video is called ‘Reach the Light’ and is about raising awareness of how people approach traffic lights. It seems like a very basic concept, however, in many low and middle-income countries, road safety good practice must be reiterated. In other parts of the world such as in high-income countries, this road safety culture building has taken place over several decades. In Belize, it is the young people setting the trends.

Caption: The Belizean Youth 4 Road Safety in collaboration with Belize Road Safety Initiative and Sol Belize proudly presents, “Reach the Light” by Yung Proti-Jay aka “The Trafficman”. This is a second video to the first one, but it takes place at night and focuses on different driving attitudes and behaviors when at a Traffic light. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who made this video a reality despite the fact that we had to be dodging the weather . Like we always say ,road safety is everybody’s business . Lets all be courteous road users for a better future. Please like and share. #BYRS #Trafficman

Caption: The Belizean Youth For Road Safety in collaboration with SOL Belize along with the Belize Road safety Initiative Proudly presents, “MY Helmet” by Yung Proti-Jay AKA The Trafficman. This is an educational music video that emphasizes the importance of using both motorcycle and Bicycle helmets and their different parts. We would like to say a special thank you to Mr. Delroy Thompson and Yung Proti-Jay for a job well done with the song production and all those who directly and indirectly assisted to make this video production a reality. #MY #HELMET #BYRS

These videos are another example of how youth culture, intertwined with support and creativity can raise awareness of pertinent social issues such as road safety.

Don’t stream and drive day – a focus on distraction free driving

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

Distractions behind the wheel are a real and dangerous phenomena. We’ve covered distractions extensively in our news artices and risk factors feature and continue to place a spotlight on distraction free driving.

Over in the UK, a campaign has been gaining momentum with its ‘Don’t stream and drive day’ championed by road safety campaigners and policeman Sgt Neil Dewson-Smyth. The campaign reminds drivers of the importance of distraction free driving with a particular focus on streaming video via mobile phones, while behind the wheel. This year the ‘Don’t stream and drive day’ takes place on 3rd April.

In 2015 the practice of livestreaming via a social media platform opened up to a much wider audience when Twitter launched the application Periscope. Overnight thousand upon thousand of users had access to an easy to use and reliable platform to share their experiences by live video. The founder of this campaign Neil Dewson-Smyth (@SgtTCS on Twitter) was quickly aware of the platform and after a very short time saw some great opportunities for the police to use live video. He has been a proponent of live video for police engagement ever since.

However, as he continued to use the platform and it’s popularity grew, he began to see the practice by some users to livestream whilst driving. The dangers and risks of this were blatantly obvious. He chose to try and do something about this and began a low level approach of challenging drivers about their behaviour and pointing out the dangers.

2016 was lauded as the livestream year and indeed it was. As popularity grew the practice of streaming and driving became more prevalent. Neil consolidated his efforts into a national awareness day that became #DontStreamAndDrive Day on 8th April 2016. The day was a huge success with great support from many police forces, ambulance services, fire & rescue services, individual officers, road safety organisations and more.

During the remainder of 2016 the campaign continued to grow with many other social media users across the globe getting behind the hashtag.

Sadly there have been and we continue to see fatalities as a consequence of this behaviour. Many drivers are oblivious to the dangers and risks this presents. More worrying are those drivers who recognise the dangers but livestream anyway in the belief they are a good driver.

Driving is a complex operation and needs your full concentration all the time. Drivers need their hands on the wheel and their “eyes and mind” on the road too. The loss of one of these vital components, even for a fraction of time, can be the difference between life and death.

Road safety is the responsibility of every road user. Together we can make a difference and reduce the number of unnecessary and totally avoidable deaths and serious injuries on our roads.

We will be supporting the Don’t Stream and Drive Thunderclap on Twitter and encourage you to do so too below!

JOIN DON’T STREAM AND DRIVE’S THUNDERCLAP

Improve your skills in injury prevention with WHO’s Mentor VIP – Applications Open

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

MENTOR-VIP is a global injury and violence prevention mentoring programme. It has been developed through the efforts of WHO and a network of global injury prevention experts.

Applications for MENTOR-VIP are now open once again. This means individuals wishing to apply to be mentored during 2018-2019 may make their applications via the WHO website between now and May 4.

Mentoring allows for skills development through exchange of experience between a more skilled or experienced person and a person seeking to develop those skills.

Whereas the TEACH-VIP training curriculum provides a strong basis for transferring knowledge to a wide variety of training audiences, MENTOR-VIP offers an opportunity for individuals committed to the injury area to further develop key skills. TEACH-VIP and MENTOR-VIP therefore have different objectives and potential target audiences while providing complementary approaches to capacity building.

MENTOR-VIP is designed to match mentees wishing to develop certain skills with mentors who have agreed to devote their time and effort to assist mentees develop those skills. Matching of individuals is made on the basis of the profiles of mentee and mentor and the overall principles and objectives of MENTOR-VIP.

Once a mentorship is awarded the mentee and mentor jointly plan the activities that will be undertaken during the mentorship. A principle of the programme is that it provide a low cost model for mentoring. Accordingly, mentoring is expected to take place primarily through electronic and telephonic forms of communication and interaction. Mentorships are for a 12 month period and begin in September of each year.

Awarding of mentorships and application process
Overall guidance to MENTOR-VIP is provided by the Core Group, which assesses candidatures and awards mentorships, discusses and recommends indicated revisions to the programme to WHO and facilitates important activities such as evaluation of MENTOR-VIP. The Core Group consists of 9 individuals from diverse backgrounds relevant to injury prevention and includes one WHO member. WHO coordinates the programme, financially supports the annual meeting of the Core Group, and assures all secretariat functions for the programme.

FAQS ABOUT MENTOR-VIP

Prospective mentees must submit an application in order to be considered for a mentorship. The application submission is carried out online and is accessible through the link below. Applications are accepted from mid-February to mid-May each year. Candidates will be made aware of the decisions in June and mentorships formally begin in September. Individuals who apply to be awarded mentorships are encouraged to read all MENTOR-VIP documentation carefully, and to bear in mind that the limited number of mentorships awarded will be based on an assessment of the most appropriate match between mentee candidates and the available mentors as well as the overall principles and objectives of MENTOR-VIP.

APPLY FOR MENTOR-VIP

#MatesMatter – peer influence for designated drivers by Think! and LadBible

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

In their own words, “The LADbible Group is redefining entertainment and breaking news for a social generation. Our global community engages with our content–spanning editorial, video, documentary and live – billions of times each and every month. Using all major platforms, we’ve rapidly risen to become one of the web’s most prominent social video publishers”.

Think! Road Safety in the UK is one of the world’s most well known road safety campaign agencies, working on a range of road safety topics in the UK. The two organizations have teamed up to present #MatesMatter, a social campaign that places a funny lens over designated-driving and a somewhat subtle anti-drink driving message aimed at young males.

The LadBible explains their mission. Whether by simply putting a smile on someone’s face with a funny video or by engaging our audience in social issues important to them, the LadBible strives to make a positive difference. They are at the forefront of reporting on the world’s latest news, telling authentic shareable stories in real-time, with our original features documenting uniqueness in culture and society.

This has recently been illustrated in their collaboration with Think! Road Safety to publish a series of videos on social media called #MatesMatter. The premise is quite simple, a bunch of lads on a night out, playing pool, drinking beers and doing what many British lads do on a weekend. The difference is, one ‘lad’ is not drinking and everytime he decides to have a drink, his friends don’t allow it. By either knocking his drink over, or simple replacing it with a soft drink.

The hashtag #MatesMatter was trending over the holiday period where mates often get together for a catch up and maybe a few pints of beer (that’s just over half a litre for the rest of the world). It’s a common fact in the Western World that young males often socialize around alcohol culture. According to the statistics, young males are more likely to be involved in fatal crashes than their female counterparts and so this campaign, promoting responsible drinking alongside road safety is a welcome reminder.

Another video shows a group of lads taking their taxi driver on a night out to ensure they can get home safely. While it’s unlikely a taxi driver would give up the night’s takings for a night out, the taxi man (who happens to be Michael Dapaah a.k.a Big Shaq of Man’s Not Hot fame) drinks non-alcoholic drinks all night because its ‘just right’.

In another video, Think! attaches its road safety messaging to young male’s passion for football. The excitement around transfer deadline day is embedded with a range of road safety messaging to offer a subtle culture insertion of safety.

We love this type of marketing. This approach takes road safety from a creative and non-preachy type of way. Youth don’t want to be told what to do, neither do they need to be scared into it. With a bit of humour, a happy emotional response and attaching messaging to their reality, we think these types of approaches will resonate with youth more. The evaluation and impact remains to be seen.

WHO develop indicators for global road safety targets – what does it mean?

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

In November 2017, the United Nations agreed on a set of 12 targets that directly relate to the Sustainable Development Goals: SDG target 3.6 seeks to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2020 and SDG target 11.2 aims to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport by 2030.

The set of 12 targets need indicators to ensure that progress is being made and that countries work towards implementing new initiatives, laws and changes to reduce road crahes.

Goals, Targets, More Targets and Indicators…What does it all mean?
In a nutshell, the current global efforts for road safety directly relate to the Sustainable Development Agenda 2015-2030 (which replaced the previous 15 years of goals, called the Millenium Development Goals), but also relate the Decade of Action 2011-2020.

All of these goals and efforts simply point to one principle; to reduce road traffic crashes globally by helping countries to put in place practices that are evidence-based and proven to work. In many parts of the world, especially low and middle-income countries (where most of the crashes and deaths happen, there is a lack of iniatitives proven to reduce crashes.

The goals refer to the Global Goals (also known as the Sustainable Development Agenda). These goals cover every aspect of development to make the world more sustainable and better equipped to impove the lives of billions of people. There are 17 global goals covering all elements of human life on the planet.

The targets are all the individual targets needed to improve life under each goal. For example, in health (Goal 3) there is a focus on mental health, maternal health, tobaccos cessation and each arenumbered individually. In total, there are 230 targets for the 17 goals. For the road safety field, target 3.6 refers directly to reducing road crashes by 50% by 2020. Taget 11.2 aims to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport by 2030 under goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

The 12 targets published by WHO focus on even further targets to help decision makers, campaigners, practitioners and pretty much all people working on road safety to be more specific on road safety action. The indicators take this even further to illustrate what needs to be seen (indicated) for targets to be successful.

Why do we need global indicators?
The 12 targets agreed upon represent the specific goals to be achieved. There is a need to develop indicators that are aligned with these targets.

Indicators provide a means to monitor the extent of progress, which can stimulate changes to the focus and scale of national road safety activities in order to meet the targets.

Indicators will be used to assess progress and achievement of the targets. Countries that have managed to improve road safety have shown that doing so is aided by setting targets and reporting on progress towards those targets based on agreed indicators. This can serve to maintain momentum and action towards national road safety efforts in support of positive impacts.

Setting indicators for voluntary global performance targets relating to road safety risk factors and service delivery mechanisms can assist national and global road safety policy efforts. This paper proposes a selection of measurable indicators aligned with the 12 agreed global targets that may be used to monitor progress towards the achievement of these global targets.

While these indicators are still up for discussion, it can be seen that there are many indicators for countries to strive towards and implement. For young people and youth calling for change on road traffic crashes, once these indicators have been agreed, can directly lobby decision makers of their country to work towards the indicators.