As you may now be aware, every so often, YOURS chooses a network member from our global youth network for road safety and puts their spotlight on the work for the world to see. When organizations submit detailed application forms with great information about their projects and work, we will spotlight them! This time, we put the spotlight on Voice Trust, India. Based in rural Tamil Nadu, this organization works to promote amongst other programs; road safety awareness and education, read about them here.
The mission of Voice Trust is to provide quality healthcare services and facilities for rural and indigenous communities, to promote wellness, to relieve suffering, to restore health, safety and provide a humanely consistent best service that they can give.
VOICE Trust has been targeting youths, parents, teachers and student communities in the Madurai disctrict and we intend to teach them about road safety, traffic sense, health issues and so forth. We intend to cover these groups to create awareness and recognition of the vulnerable position of young people in traffic in our contemporary society.
Girls wrote Bledge for Road Safety- Latha Madhvan Engineering College
The Voice Trust’s Objectives include:
- To engage local communities in all social welfare programs for participatory development;
- To conduct Road Safety Education Programmes in Madurai and rural areas.
- To sensitize youths on contemprary challenges facing them and solutions to the challenges.
- To empower youths for self sufficiency and for endogenous development.
- To create awareness among youth on digital empowerment programs.
- To provide the community life supporting skills base for self reliance
Road Safety Awareness Class- Latha Mahdhvan Matriculation School
An example of a recent project includes the Voice Trust’s Road Safety Education Program. The project was aimed at implementing at implementing a program aimed at the reduction of trauma on our road through the delivery of quality, evidence based road safety education programs among youth driving vehicles in Madurai City and students in educational institutions.
The Voice Trust intends to implement Road Safety Education Programs continuously for three months as an early intervention program that will set the scene for developing positive road safety attitudes and behaviour among youths and students in educational institutions.
They plan to involve local hospitals, Traffic Police Department personnel, teachers and women groups in the programs and make the activity a campaign against rash driving. The programs will open the eyes of youths and students on risk management and decision making traffic related situations and associated safety measures to be followed while driving.
Outcomes of the Activity:
District Police officials and reputed hospitals appreciated our programs. Schools also requested us to continue the program in view of the increase in accidents rates in Madurai City due to wrong depiction of youths riding bokes in advertisements, cinemas, televisions and media.