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Global Newsletter July 2017 |
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Dear Friends and Supporters, This month, I had the opportunity to attend the Safe Kids Worldwide Childhood Injury Prevention Convention and present on our work on Vietnam’s national child helmet initiative and our pedestrian safety program, Walk This Way. We also welcomed Dr. Bella Dinh-Zarr, Vice-Chairman of the U.S. National Transport Safety Board, to our Ho Chi Minh City office for a visit with the team. In Thailand, it was a successful start for our recently launched video PSA, "Tell Auntie PIA" which has garnered 1 million views on Facebook within its first two months. After reviewing the campaign’s findings, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) Governor committed to implementing a pilot safe speed zone in Bang Sue District within the next two months. Next month marks the start of the new school year in many of our program countries, and we look forward to another year of educating teachers, students, and families on the importance of road safety. Read on to learn more about our recent progress and news from around the globe. Kind regards, Mirjam Sidik
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Global |
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Vietnam |
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Cambodia |
Thailand |
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Employment Opportunities
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Global |
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Photo of the month– Vice-Chairman of U.S. National Transport Safety Board visits AIP Foundation
Dr. Bella Dinh-Zarr, Vice-Chairman of the U.S. National Transport Safety Board, stopped by our Ho Chi Minh City office to visit the team. Dr. Dinh-Zarr has dedicated her career to injury prevention and we have had the privilege of partnering with her on a number of initiatives. Dr. Dinh-Zarr was appointed to her current position by former U.S. President Barack Obama in March 2015, and will serve through December 2018. Like the photo on our Facebook page here. |
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CEO attends international child injury prevention conference to discuss helmet access, pedestrian safety
AIP Foundation’s CEO, Mirjam Sidik, joined child injury prevention peers at the Safe Kids Worldwide Childhood Injury Prevention Convention, known as PrevCon, in Baltimore, Maryland. At the convention, Sidik presented on Vietnam’s National Child Helmet Action Plan, which aims to increase helmet use among child motorcycle passengers. She also discussed our pedestrian safety program, Walk This Way, which is a partnership with FedEx and Safe Kids Worldwide. The conference brought together hundreds of public health and safety practitioners in the field of childhood injury prevention from the U.S. and around the world. Prior to attending the conference, Sidik attended the Global Network Meeting for Safe Kids Worldwide in Baltimore. Walk This Way is a global program implemented in 11 countries. Every year, Safe Kids Worldwide gathers all of the local partner nonprofits implementing Walk This Way at an annual meeting to share ideas, issues, and challenges. Since we launched Walk This Way in Vietnam in 2009, the program has reached 224,263 students from 278 schools across the country. |
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AIP Foundation's President and Founder joins global leaders at impact investment summit
AIP Foundation’s President and Founder, Greig Craft, joined leaders from the impact investment community for the GSG Impact Summit 2017 held in Chicago, Illinois. Key themes discussed over the course of the summit included the current state of the impact investment sector globally and strategies for creating further impact by 2020. The Global Social Impact Investment Steering Group (GSG) was established in August 2015 as the successor to the Social Impact Investment Taskforce, which was originally created by the Group of Eight (G8). GSG brings together leaders from finance, business, and philanthropy from across the globe, as well as government officials and its network organizations that are actively supporting impact investing initiatives. The GSG is working to increase momentum by promoting a unified view of impact investment and facilitating knowledge exchanges. |
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Related news: WHO releases road safety technical report, targets six key strategies
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released Save LIVES: a road safety technical package as a resource to support road safety advocates in their efforts towards reducing road traffic deaths and injuries and achieving the Sustainable Development Goal targets 3.6 and 11.2. The report and accompanying videos discuss six strategies and 22 interventions selected by leading road safety experts as those most likely to impact road traffic deaths and injuries in the short and long term. The measures relate to: speed management, infrastructure design, vehicle safety, laws and their enforcement, emergency post-crash care, and leadership on road safety. According to the WHO, each year, 1.25 million people die as a result of road traffic crashes and as many as 50 million people are injured. Not only are these crashes the leading cause of death among youth aged 15 to 29 years, but 90% of road traffic deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, resulting in a significant economic burden. For more findings discussed by the WHO, download the full set of resources here. |
Vietnam |
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International road safety expert shoots footage in Vietnam for new documentary
Dr. Rohit Baluja, President of the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) in India and Director of the College of Traffic Management, visited Ho Chi Minh City this month to understand the problems faced by vulnerable road users with respect to pedestrians, schoolchildren, the elderly, and people with disabilities. IRTE is producing a documentary focused on vulnerable road users in Southeast Asia. He met with members of our team to identify locations for filming and discuss the unique road safety issues affecting schoolchildren in Vietnam. Dr. Baluja will show his finished documentary at a conference in India in November, as well as at the World Forum meeting in Geneva in March 2018. The documentary is part of a project that Dr. Baluja is leading in partnership with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the U.S. and in consultation with the United Nations Global Road Safety Forum. He is developing codes of practice for vulnerable road users in Southeast Asia, especially related to pedestrians, schoolchildren, and people with disabilities. The IRTE is a non-profit, research based organization focused on road safety in India. The IRTE is a member of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration and the Commission for Global Road Safety representing India. The IRTE’s College offers training courses for traffic police, engineers, and drivers in its endeavor to make roads safe in the region of Southeast Asia. |
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Australian university students donate 35 helmets for Vietnamese children, visit Protec helmet factory
Students from the University of Adelaide in Australia donated 35 children’s helmets to AIP Foundation after a visit to the Protec factory in Hanoi. During the tour, the students learned about the history and mission of AIP Foundation, as well as current road safety challenges in low- and middle-income countries. The students also observed how to construct a helmet and the process for testing helmet quality in the on-site lab. Dinh Kim Phuong, the nonprofit’s National Program Manager for the country, thanked the University of Adelaide students for their donation, which she said will “help protect Vietnamese children and their future.” The visit to the Protec factory was organized by AIP Foundation and the Australian Embassy in Vietnam. In 2001, AIP Foundation's President and Founder, Greig Craft, founded Protec and began producing the world’s first "tropical" motorcycle helmet. Since its inception, the factory has produced nearly 6.5 million helmets. View more photos from the visit here. |
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Related news: New study finds 90% of child-related traffic crashes in Hanoi involve high school students
Source: Vietnam News, 26 July, 2017 A new study finds that 90% of child-related traffic crashes in Hanoi involve high school students, both as drivers of motorbikes and bicycles, and as victims. The National Committee for Road Safety and the Việt Nam Association of Motorbike Manufacturers (VAMM) sponsored the study, which is based on responses from 2,390 high school students. The study highlighted a number of findings, including that 27% of students surveyed said they were not taught driving skills at school. Currently, schools are only required to provide theoretical road safety lessons. Reports by police and the students’ feedback also indicate that most traffic crashes by high school students are the result of speeding, driving in wrong lanes or careless driving. Vice head of National Committee for Road Safety, Khuất Việt Hùng, pointed out that high school students are particularly vulnerable to traffic crashes due to their inexperience and tendency towards distracted driving. He emphasized the importance of helping them improve their driving skills. Read the article from Viet Nam News for more findings from the study. |
Cambodia |
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300 students continue to receive road safety lessons during their summer vacation
Helmets for Families, a program supported by Manulife Cambodia, kept busy during the summer vacation at Kessararam Primary School with interactive, police led road safety lessons for students as well as community outreach activities to promote helmet use and road safety. Manulife volunteers teamed up with traffic police from Siem Reap to lead road safety lessons for 300 students from Kessararam Primary School. The students reinforced what they learned through interactive games, including a painting contest, a bicycle race, and a quiz of road safety questions. As part of Helmets for Families programming, volunteers from the Young Ambassadors for Road Safety (YARS) network and from local universities did outreach in the community surrounding Kessararam Primary School. The volunteers distributed educational materials on the importance of helmet use as well as safe driving and road behavior. One thousand leaflets were placed in strategic high-volume centers to encourage the community to wear helmets. Manulife Cambodia has supported the Helmets for Families program since 2012. Throughout its tenure, in addition to equipping school children with life-saving road safety knowledge and skills, the program has provided nearly 4,000 helmets to some of the country's most vulnerable road users. |
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Helmets for Kids takes helmet safety education out of the classroom and into the schoolyard
Our extracurricular activities take our helmet safety curriculum out of the classroom and into the schoolyard. This month, we used interactive games to reinforce students' road safety knowledge as part of the Helmets for Kids program sponsored by the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB). Activities included a painting contest, a bicycle race, and a quiz to test students on road safety knowledge. Local traffic police from Siem Reap led the sessions for the 300 students and teachers from Kiru Kosal Anuk Wat Primary School, which is located on a busy highway in Siem Reap Province. ARRB, which provides research services in the road and transport industries, began collaborating with AIP Foundation in 2012. The two organizations recently partnered on a new Helmets for Kids program, which aims to make young road users attending Anuk Wat Koruk Kosal Primary School in Siem Reap, role models in their community. |
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Student road safety advocates in Cambodia learn key skills at capacity building workshop
The Young Ambassadors for Road Safety (YARS) program convened 25 of its members for a capacity building workshop focused on lessons learned from implementation of the program’s action plan thus far. AIP Foundation organized the workshop to solicit feedback on successes, challenges, and lessons learned from student ambassadors from each of the target universities. The meeting also focused on capacity building for next steps of the action plan, including how to effectively utilize social media to raise awareness. In addition, AIP Foundation and target universities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to ensure implementation of the YARS program is sustainable. YARS is a partnership with the Australian Direct Aid Program, an office of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The capacity building program works with three universities located in high-risk traffic areas with the aim of empowering university students to design and implement sustainable road safety awareness activities for their peers and nearby primary school students. |
Thailand |
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Awareness campaign video hits 1 million views, Bangkok Governor commits to pilot safe speed zone
"Tell Auntie PIA" ("Fong Pa PIA"), our recently launched video PSA in Bangkok, has garnered 1 million views on Facebook since May. The campaign, which is part of the new Slow Down, Save Lives program, urges people to submit comments and images through social media of risky road behaviors that they see and dangerous traffic areas in the city. During a recent meeting with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) Governor, AIP Foundation’s Thailand Chairperson Ratanawadee H. Winther and Country Manager Oratai Junsuwanaruk together with Legal Development Program (LDP) members, Pisith Wongthiathana and Pol. Maj. Gen. Pongson Kongtreekaew, and other partners used the campaign’s findings to advocate for establishing pilot safe speed zones in Bangkok. The partners presented the information, including a crowd-sourced list of high risk traffic areas in Bangkok, to the representative of the BMA Governor and members of the Metropolitan Police Bureau's (MPB) Traffic Control Division. Suthon Anakul, Director of the BMA Traffic and Transport Department, presided over the event on behalf of Bangkok’s Governor. Mr. Suthon said BMA officials will conduct a field study of the area around Yothinburana School in Bang Sue District to prepare for the pilot. They will put up traffic warning posters about the new 50 km/h speed limit and mark out traffic lines. Mr. Suthon told the group he was, “confident that within two months’ time we will be ready to announce our first pilot safe speed zone in Bangkok.” The World Health Organization, ThaiRoads, Sidekick, the LDP, and other community leaders have been key supporters of the "Tell Auntie PIA" ("Fong Pa PIA") campaign. Read Bangkok Post’s coverage of the meeting for more on the pilot safe speed zone. View additional photos from the meeting here. Watch the video PSA on Facebook here. |
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Ride-sharing company, Grab, raises $30,000 USD for
Helmets for Kids program
The Asia-based ride-sharing company, Grab, will support a new Helmets for Kids program in Thailand using the $30,000 USD it raised during a recent promotion in Bangkok. From 19 June to 9 July, Grab pledged to donate 5% of its motorcycle passenger service's revenue in the city to our work. This was the maximum amount of funding possible through the promotion. For more information on the initiative, like Grab on Facebook and watch the campaign's promotional video here. |
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Watch a video recap of recent
Street Wise launch
Watch a video recap of the recent kick-off ceremony for our Street Wise program in Thailand. The program is supported by Chevron Thailand and has been implemented in Songkhla Province since 2014. View the full video of the event here. Read more about the launch ceremony here. |
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Singhanakhon Police lead after school programs on road safety for 600 students
Representatives from the Singhanakhon Police department led extracurricular activities focused on road safety for 600 students and 23 teachers from the Singhanakhon District. Students learned a variety of road safety lessons, including guidelines for driving safely and how to wear a helmet properly. Participating schools included Wat Sathit Chonlatarn School, Wat Thammakhod School, Wat Bor Pab School, Wat Ta Luang Khong School, and Wat Lo Ka School. The extracurricular activities were part of Phase II of Street Wise, a program supported by Chevron Thailand that aims to improve road safety awareness and behaviors of communities in Singhanakhon District. View additional photos from the activities here. |
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