Earlier this year, the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety announced a call for proposals for Local Actions 2022. The call invited members of the Youth Coalition to short-term or mid-term grassroots action plants that are oriented to address the most pressing road safety issues in their areas. The Youth Coalition received over sixty Local Actions applications. Through a rigorous and competitive process, the selection committee behind the initiative was able to select seventeen projects to support and fund for the year 2022. We are pleased to present our Winners and their projects!
Brian Ssemwanga: Safer roads in Hasselt and Diebenbeek now
Brian is 31 years old and is a student at Hasselt University doing a Master of Science in Transportation sciences. He has a background in Transport and Logistics Management with 7 years of experience in Heavy trucks mechanics. His project, Safer roads in Hasselt and Diebenbeek now, aims to improve the safety of students who cycle and walk to academic institutions in Hasselt and Diepenbeek.
Ana Rodriguez: Retorno Seguro a la Escuela
Ana is an architect, urban planner, and urban activist. She led the movement of La Banqueta se Respeta where she promoted the citizen initiative of the Accessibility and Mobility Law for the state of Nuevo León. Her project, Retorno Seguro a la Escuela or the Safe Return to Schools Challenge consolidates the efforts from the 2021 Local Actions Project; Safe Return to School Program.
Ezequiel Naidich: No te Disgraigas
Ezequiel is 23 years old and is currently finishing his studies in International Relations. He has been an informal educator for the last six years. He currently works with Asociación MiNU as the Education and Road Safety Coordinator. His project, #NoTeDistraigas or #Don’tGetDistracted focuses on raising awareness against distracted driving.
Atieno Agutu: Community partnership for safe walking and cycling in Kisumu
Atieno is a transport specialist with training from Hasselt University in Belgium, where she studied Transportation Sciences under a fully-funded scholarship from VLIR-UOS. She specialized in Road Safety in Low-and Middle-Income Countries and Transport Policy and Planning. Her project, Community Partnership for Safe Walking & Cycling in Kisumu, is a community mobilization and awareness project that takes the approach of community groups locally known as “chamas”.
Dilshod Kholmatov: Hey, I’m moving on two wheels
Dilshod is a member of the “Young generation of Tajikistan”. He was a semi-professional road and mountain bike cyclist and has traveled to many places by bicycle. He currently works as the manager’s assistant in road safety and post-crash response projects. The project seeks to encourage the Dushanbe authorities to promote cycling as an official policy. Bicycles provide time-saving transportation that significantly increases access to income, health, and education.
Laura Daniela Gómez: Meaningful cycling actions with a gender approach
Daniela lives in Bogotá, Colombia. She is 27 years old and has a degree in Political Science and postgraduate studies in Public Management. She works as a Project Manager in Despacio, promoting safer and more sustainable mobility. Besides her job, she also works for her community and currently serves as a member of the Local and City Bicycle Board. The project seeks to develop and encourage meaningful actions to raise awareness on the relevance of improving road safety conditions with a gender approach.
Henrique Soares Ribeiro Sant’anna de Oliveira: Coleti.VU 2.0
Henrique is a volunteer at Fundação Thiago Gonzaga – Vida Urgente, one of the biggest road safety NGOs in Brazil. He takes part in youth mobilization and organization roles. Coleti.VU 2.0 is a new approach for youth in Brazil to increase and grow participation around main concerns regarding road safety for young people. It is based on the combination of political activism that engages with local authorities and the mobilization of young peers for practical actions in their own communities.
Shagun Sharma: Clean India for road safety
Shagun is based in Delhi, India. By profession, she works with Sattva Consulting engaging in impact consulting with nonprofits in India and APAC. Her project will involve art, community mobilization and awareness, peer-to-peer engagement, and advocacy to use their existing work at the intersection of waste management, climate change, and Road Safety for engaging in evidence-based campaigning and advocacy for the cause.
Hemant Tiwari: Safe roads in Surkhet, Nepal
Hemant is a transport engineer who has been working in transport planning, traffic engineering, and road safety since 2011. He leads a youth-led NGO named Safe & Sustainable Travel Nepal (SSTN) which focuses on sustainable and safe transportation systems through research, awareness, capacity building, and advocacy. His project will focus on capacity building on safer road infrastructure along with RSA among technical, bureaucratic, and political leaders at central, provincial, and local government.
Vania Emmanuela: Strapped Helmet Community
Vania is a 23-year-old Medical Student (Clinical Year) at the Faculty of Medicine, Padjadjaran University, Indonesia. She and her team are part of CARS Unpad: Center for Youth Actions on Road Safety Unpad. Motorcycles are the main choice of transportation in her city. The project seeks to address the concern to appropriate stakeholders to discuss the installation of additional CCTV in order to detect violations of helmet usage.
Shehab Abou Zeid: Art for Vulnerable Road Users
Shehab is from Egypt and currently works as a program manager of the Nada Foundation for Safer Egyptian Roads. His background is in political sciences, specializing in political theory. His goal is to achieve lasting social change through the process of empowerment, helping people to gain more control over their own lives within the Egyptian context. The project brief is to engage the young generation in the Road Safety Movement by occupying the walls of one of the places where young people gather, such as universities, Social or Sports clubs Graffiti Drawing.
Nikita Luthfi Adriyana: Bike to School
Nikita is an undergraduate second-year student of the Faculty of Medicine at Padjadjaran University. She is currently an active member of Center for Youth Action Road Safety (CARS) Unpad which aims to help improve and expand our mission in sharing about road safety, especially for youths. The project “Bike To School” emerged from the CARS Unpad members’ concern about the increasing number of underage drivers, specifically motorcycle riders at the junior high school level, who often aren’t old enough to legally have a driver’s license.
El Khalil Cherif: Youth Acting for Zero Road Fatalities in Morocco
El Khalil is a researcher at Instituto Superior Técnico. He has a PhD in Environment, Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System and recently a Master in Sustainable Ocean Blue Economy for Environment Diplomacy from the University of Trieste. The project aims to develop an advocacy toolkit for decision-makers in Morocco to achieve meaningful youth involvement to impact the future of SAFE and SUSTAINABLE mobility. The toolkit is intended for entities at the decision-making table like the Ministry of Transport.
Pankhuri Jain: Community Connect 2
Pankhuri holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science. She is currently the Program Coordinator for the Community Connect vertical at the Blue Ribbon Movement. Community Connect is a leadership program that encourages youth to engage in active citizenship by addressing local civic issues. It aims to educate young people with awareness about civic issues especially around road safety so that they can work with local decision-makers to improve the civic facilities of the community.
Kenneth Mulinde: Live Roads
Kenny is a creative activist and is the team leader at Youth Arts Movement Uganda. He currently works as the Creative Activism Inspirator with Action Aid International Uganda, and a youth advocate Above All. Live Roads will be realized in Apac district-Northern Uganda, to build upon the success of the #BeRoadSmartUG campaign, a local actions winning project 2021, that has promoted women’s rights and road safety in Kampala, using creative activism to raise awareness on women’s rights and safe mobility.
Tendekayi Marapara: Safer School Zones Zimbabwe
Tendekayi was a delegate of the 2nd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety. He is Civil Engineer and is a certified Youth Star who can use the Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) Methodology developed by the International Road Assessment Programme (iRap). The initiative will serve as a pilot project for safer school zones in Zimbabwe, at a local primary school, incorporating the application of Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) Methodology.
Simon Patrick Obi: Advocacy for Safe Road Safety and Youthful Involvement
Simon Patrick Obi is the Founder and the Executive Director for GreenLight Initiative, a youth-led and leading road safety organization in Africa. His project involves advocacy for road safety and youthful involvement in Nigeria. The project seeks to organize high-level policy dialogues on road safety; push for youth involvement, and advocate for the implementation of 30km/hr speed reduction in streets and high-risk areas where road users especially youths mixed with traffic.
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