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Global Newsletter March 2017 |
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Dear Friends and Supporters, A few weeks ago, the Federation Internationale de L’Automobile launched a star-studded road safety campaign – ambassadors range from Pharrell Williams, to Michelle Yeoh and Yohan Blake. This month, we also joined our fellow industry advocates in Bangkok during the 24th United Nations Road Safety Collaboration meeting to strategize for upcoming initiatives and discuss progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. As international awareness about road safety continues to increase, we are committed to empowering our program communities through innovative projects. This month, we’ve continued implementing our school-based programs. In Vietnam, senior representatives from our long-time partner, Abbott Laboratories, participated in educational activities at a program school in Ho Chi Minh City. In Cambodia, we partnered with the Australian Direct Aid Program to launch a unique initiative, Youth Ambassadors for Road Safety, which will train university students to be road safety ambassadors in their communities. We are proud to build our program communities’ capacities so they can help us develop the most effective and long-lasting interventions. Together, we can make safe roads for life. Kind regards, Mirjam Sidik
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Global |
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Vietnam |
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Cambodia |
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Thailand |
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Employment Opportunities
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Global |
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Photo of the month – Practicing safe road user skills in Siem Reap
Students at Anuk Wat Koruk Kosal Primary School in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia, participate in a road safety simulation course as part of the Helmets for Kids program. The program, which is supported by the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB), also provided the students with nearly 550 quality helmets. |
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American philanthropist, Vietnamese magazine editor join AIP Foundation's boards
Daniel McHugh, an American businessman and philanthropist, and Tran Mai Anh, a Vietnamese attorney and magazine editor, have joined AIP Foundation's Board of Advisors and Board of Directors, respectively. McHugh is CEO of Livingston International, a finance and consulting company in Chicago, Illinois. He has supported AIP Foundation since its inception, both financially and through past service on the organization's boards. Mai Anh holds a Master's Degree in Corporate Law and has studied in both Vietnam and Australia. She is currently editor of Heritage Magazine and co-founder of the Genital Reconstruction Surgery for Children project. She is the recipient of "Vietnam's Outstanding Citizen Award 2010" and is listed as one of the "Most 50 Influential Women in Vietnam 2017" by Forbes. |
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Road safety advocates convene at United Nations meeting in Bangkok
Six members of AIP Foundation's team joined fellow road safety advocates at the 24th United Nations Road Safety Collaboration Meeting in Bangkok. Topics covered during the two-day meeting included progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and plans for the upcoming UN Global Road Safety Week. Pagna Kim, AIP Foundation's Cambodia Country Director, presented during a session on the successes of the recent Head Safe. Helmet On. program. VOICE TV interviewed AIP Foundation’s President and Founder, Greig Craft, during the event. View the segment here. |
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AIP Foundation President exchanges ideas with global road safety partners in London
Greig Craft, President and Founder of AIP Foundation, met with fellow road safety advocates from the international community during the recent Global Initiative for Child Health & Mobility (CHMI) partners meeting and the FIA Foundation Programmes Forum in London, United Kingdom. Representatives from FIA Foundation, World Resources Institute, the United Nations, the Overseas Development Institute, UNICEF, and Save the Children, among other key stakeholders, attended the events. During the meetings, Craft presented on AIP Foundation’s child helmet advocacy work in Vietnam and its Head Safe. Helmet On. program in Cambodia. FIA Foundation is a key supporter of many of the nonprofit’s initiatives. |
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Related news: Managing speed - a new publication from the World Health Organization
In the context of the Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week, WHO has released “Managing speed.” The document highlights that excessive and inappropriate speed is among the key risks for road traffic deaths and injuries, contributing to around one third of road traffic fatalities in high-income countries and up to one half in low- and middle-income countries. Safe speeds are among the four main elements of the “safe systems approach” to road safety, along with safe roads and roadsides, safe vehicles and safe road users. Read the full report here. |
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Related news: Federation Internationale de L’Automobile launches #3500Lives campaign with celebrity ambassadors
Rafael Nadal, Pharrell Williams, and Nico Rosberg are amongst the stars featured in the first ever worldwide outdoor road safety advertising campaign, launched today by the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and advertising giant JCDecaux, with support from the FIA Foundation. Named for the number of people who lose their lives in preventable road traffic crashes every day on the world’s roads, the #3500LIVES campaign unites a roster of major celebrities from sports and arts with political and religious leaders in a call for political commitment and a properly resourced UN Fund for Road Safety to meet the challenge of the Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on safe infrastructure and vehicles. Members of the public are encouraged to support this call via a campaign website at www.fia.com/3500lives and to ‘Sign Up, Stay Safe, Save Lives’. Watch the official campaign launch video here. Read more on the campaign via FIA Foundation here. |
Vietnam |
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Extracurricular activities reinforce 600 students’ helmet use knowledge, preliminary data shows increase in safe road behaviors
Engaging extracurricular activities reinforced 600 students’ helmet safety knowledge at Ap Dinh Primary School in Hoc Mon District, one of the six schools involved in Abbott’s Helmets for Families program. Students’ behaviors have shifted during the course of the 2016-2017 program, with the average helmet wearing rates across all four schools in the district reaching 81%, compared to just 31% at baseline. Hoc Mon District is a low-income, agricultural area of Ho Chi Minh City. Senior representatives from Abbott visiting from the pharmaceutical company’s U.S. headquarters volunteered during the extracurricular activities. During the event, students participated in a Ms. and Mr. Helmet Safety competition, which included dance performances, helmet wearing demonstrations, and tests of their road safety knowledge. They also played creative games that taught them about the differences between non-standard and standard helmets, the importance of wearing helmets, and how to wear their helmets correctly. In the 2016-2017 school year, the program has provided 5,600 high quality helmets to students, teachers, and parents through donations and subsidies. The program serves four schools in Ho Chi Minh City’s Hoc Mon District and two in Hanoi. Since its launch in 2013, Helmets for Families has served beneficiaries at 15 schools in Vietnam, and has provided more than 30,000 quality helmets through donations and subsidized exchanges. View more photos from the event here. Read the event’s full press release here. |
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U.S. business school students visit Protec helmet factory, learn about social enterprise model
A group of 37 Executive MBA candidates from the United States met with Greig Craft, AIP Foundation President and Founder, at the Protec facility in Hanoi. The students, who attend the University of Wisconsin - Madison, learned about the social enterprise model that Craft used to found the helmet factory more than 15 years ago. "Our students who are already engaged in social enterprise activities were delighted to find a friend who shares their vision for improving life for others while other students discussed how they might be able to go beyond their current philanthropic activity and create or contribute to a social enterprise that could benefit from their knowledge, skills, abilities, and time," Randall B. Dunham, the students' professor, said of the visit. |
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60 community stakeholders attend pedestrian safety program kick-off workshop
Sixty community stakeholders, including representatives from local government agencies and schools, attended the kick-off workshop for the current phase of Walk This Way. The latest phase of the pedestrian safety program is working with primary and secondary schools, as well as public sector organizations, located along Ho Chi Minh City's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor. Construction on the BRT, which will increase the availability of public transportation and cuts across multiple districts, will commence this year. During the meeting, AIP Foundation also kicked-off the Photovoice competition. Government representatives hailed from agencies including the city's Traffic Safety Committee, Department of Education and Training, and transport and police departments. Principals from 37 primary and secondary schools in districts 1, 5, and 6 of the city were also in attendance. AIP Foundation, operating as Safe Kids Vietnam, has worked with FedEx Express on Walk This Way since 2009. |
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300 staff from international shipping terminal in Vietnam taught defensive driving techniques
APM Terminals and AIP Foundation conducted truck driver road safety trainings at Cai Mep International Terminal (CMIT), which is located in the fast-growing market of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, Vietnam. The terminal neighbors National Highway 51, a notoriously dangerous roadway on which vulnerable users, such as motorcyclists and bicyclists, drive alongside heavy container and truck traffic. This new curriculum aims to make the CMIT-affiliated truck drivers, employees, and the community surrounding the international shipping port safe by promoting strong driving skills and defensive driving techniques. Three hundred truck drivers, health and safety staff, and sub-contractors from CMIT, a subsidiary of APM Terminals, attended the inaugural training. “Some of the most dynamic and high-growth areas for our business are in low- and middle-income countries like Vietnam,” Kevin Furniss, Vice President of Health, Safety, Security, Environment and Sustainability, said. “As container throughput increases at CMIT, we are committed to equipping our drivers with the necessary skills to be safe on the road, contribute to our communities, and best facilitate global trade.” APM Terminals, headquartered in The Netherlands, is an international terminal operator with facilities in 69 countries. The Lifting Safety program was launched in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province in December 2016 during a road safety knowledge exchange between truck drivers and primary school students. Read the event’s full press release here. View more photos from the training here. Visit the Viet Nam News for coverage of the event. |
Cambodia |
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Young ambassadors network empowers students to design sustainable road safety awareness initiatives for 3,000 peers
AIP Foundation launched a Young Ambassadors for Road Safety (YARS) network that will empower university students to design and implement sustainable road safety awareness activities for more than 3,000 of their peers. During the program’s kick-off ceremony, a helmet design competition was also announced. The capacity building program will work with three universities located in high-risk traffic areas with the aim of increasing awareness of safe driving behaviors and the recent law mandating passenger helmet use. YARS is a partnership with the Australian Direct Aid Program, an office of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. AIP Foundation selected the participating universities using a set of guidelines such as the campus’s proximity to a main highway, strong buy-in from university officials, and students’ past involvement in road crashes. The ambassadors will promote safe driving skills within their age group and will also work with primary school students to educate Cambodia’s youngest generation of road users. AIP Foundation will encourage the use of diverse mediums to students as they design their original initiatives. YARS will also work with local traffic police to increase law enforcement and educational activities around the campuses. AIP Foundation decided to work in Siem Reap Province, a busy tourist hub in the northern region of the country, because the area faces both urban and suburban road issues. Highway 6, one of Cambodia’s major roadways, also passes through the province. Read the full press release here. |
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Students encouraged to wear motorcycle helmets as part of school uniforms
Nearly 550 primary school students received quality helmets and were encouraged to wear them as part of their school uniforms during the kick-off ceremony for a new Helmets for Kids program, which is supported by the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB). The road safety initiative aims to make young road users attending Anuk Wat Koruk Kosal Primary School in Siem Reap, role models in their community. The students, along with their teachers, also participated in educational activities during the event. ARRB is an Australian organization, which provides research services in the road and transport industries, began collaborating with AIP Foundation in 2012. It has also supported schools in Vietnam and Thailand. It also assisted in developing and implementing road treatments in communities served by the nonprofit’s pedestrian safety program in China. Anuk Wat Koruk Kosal Primary School is located on a busy highway in Siem Reap Province. In 2015, one student passed away due to a road crash. The student was not wearing a helmet and suffered a fatal head injury during a motorcycle crash while his father was driving him home from school. Before the program started, 80% of students commuted to school by motorcycles and bicycles though only about 1% wore helmets. View more photos from the event here. Read the full press release from the event here. |
Thailand |
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Road safety advocacy program kicks-off its third year in Thailand
The Legal Development Program (LDP), a road safety advocacy program coordinated by AIP Foundation, kicked-off its third year of working to create safe roads in Thailand. The initiative, which is a global effort led by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the World Health Organization, aims to build the capacity of key stakeholders to strengthen legislation in the country. During the meeting, members of the program performed a SWOT analysis that reviewed its successes thus far and strategized how to strengthen this year's activities. View more photos from the meeting here. |
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Road safety experts discuss new research on the causes of crashes at seminar hosted by Thai police
Thatchawut Jardbandista, a member of the Legal Development Program (LDP), joined fellow road safety experts to discuss recent research examining causes of crashes during a seminar titled “The Awareness…Thailand Traffic.” During the meeting, which was hosted by the Police Education Bureau of the Royal Thai Police, Jardbandista talked about the circumstances surrounding a recent major crash involving a minivan and a pick-up truck that recently killed 25 people. The research discussed at the meeting also revealed that drunk driving is a leading cause of road crashes in the country. The LDP is an international program of Bloomberg Philanthropies and the World Health Organization that aims to build the capacities of key stakeholders to advocate for stronger road safety legislation. AIP Foundation leads the initiative in Thailand, which has the second deadliest roads in the world. |
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