The National Youth Parliament and the Gambia Red Cross society signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday 17 March to promote road safety. Mr Ousman Conteh, member of the Youth Taskforce of YOURS and working for the National Youth Parliament of the Gambia updated us about this progress. He is leading the partnership between the Youth Paliament and the Red Cross in the Gambia in order to mobilize and inspire young people to take some of the responsibilities on their own shoulders. The partnership objectives are to build capacity, to advocate for young people and ensure resources for road safety projects. Below you can read his story:
Dear friends,
I am still overwhelmed by the road traffic crashes that continue to shatter the dreams of our young people in the Gambia on frequent basis. Because of this and the giant stride by YOURS, that I committed myself to advocate for the safety of young people on the world roads particularly my own country the Gambia.
This is what prompted me to lead and initiate a road safety partnership. I served as the nominated Chairperson of this joint commission between the National Youth Parliament of The Gambia and the National Youth Commission of the Gambia Redcross Society. We signed a memorandum of understanding between the two youth institutions to join forces to fight road crashes in the Gambia last week on 17 March 2010.
The ultimate objectives of this partnership is to mobilize and inspire the young people of the Gambia to take responsibility and raise a strong voice for the safety of young people on our roads, through Capacity Building, Advocacy, Lobbying and resource mobilisation. The most exciting thing about this project is that The Gambia Red Cross Society has a youth membership of 30,000 members across the bread and length of the Gambia and therefore has our partnership the potential to reach thousands of young people in the Gambia.
We belief that road safety issues are multisectoral. We do not lose sight of demanding the support of our government, the private sector and the other partners. For example the World Health Organisation office in the Gambia, who provided mainly the technical and financial support to the government of the Gambia to support their road safety initiatives. It is with great pleasure to share with you all that we already have the endorsement by the Ministry responsible for Works Construction and Infrastructure, The Media, The WHO Gambia office and other partners as they all participated at the official signing ceremony of this event. Therefore, we hope to push road safety higher on the agenda in the Gambia.
In this regard, it’s my honour and privilege to report this breakthrough in the history of road safety campaign in the Gambia.
Please see the attached copy of the Memorandum of Understanding, a media article about this effort in the Gambia and some photos.
Ousman Conteh