YOURS is in the region of completion in the planning phase of our new global awareness campaign. Every year, YOURS will initiate a global campaign where members of our network and all interested parties can take part and raise awareness about road safety in a creative manner.
YOURS strongly advocates the use of creative campaigns to raise awareness about global youth and road safety issues. Last year, we initiated The World Crossing Campaign, which was highly successful and saw lots of young people from around the world coming together and standing strong for youth road safety. This campaign was our maiden global campaign and the energy, commitment and fun conveyed by the young people taking part was testament of young people’s growing effort and attention to global road safety.
In this campaign, young people recorded their own 10 second clip as part of a wider video illustrating that young people call upon their peers, loved ones and decision makers to ‘make the world’s road safe for young people’. The end result saw a video showcasing diversity and creativity in the ‘eternal road crossing’ where young people crossed the road together holding a sign showing their commitment to improving the road safety situation.
The World Crossing Campaign video reached a global audience across the internet and social media as well as being showcased at the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration meeting where global decision makers in road safety watched the film and praised its outcomes. Additionally, YOURS granted the best entry an award of 1000 euros which contributed towards a unique youth led road safety project in the Gambia. This project helped raise awareness about road safety to young people and the wider public in The Gambia, the project undertaken by the winning entry team can be read here.
This year, YOURS is launching its new campaign which promises to be highly participatory, engaging and fun while raising awareness about global road safety everywhere. The campaign will engage our Global Youth Network for Road Safety as well as all youth road safety enthusiasts around the world.
While we are not releasing full details about the campaign just yet, we can announce that our focus this year is on ’embracing life’ whereby young people will be encourage to take part under the sentiment of appreciating our lives while remembering those who have tragically lost their lives on the roads. Our campaign will also include a competition that will award a monetary grant just like last year. Budding photographers (and those who just love taking snaps) will be happy to hear that a part of the campaign will include a photo competition where we will encourage young people to take photos orientated on a given theme.
The campaign is an exciting prospect and a participatory campaign so watch this space for more details! We look forward to your participation!