Empowering children with road safety knowledge
Whether walking to school or riding their bike to a friend’s house, children are some of the most vulnerable on the roads today. In response, the Global Road Safety Partnership-Philippines is making a concerted effort to empower children through road-safety education.
Launched on 8 March, a pilot project sponsored by Philipinas Shell, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Department of Education and the Global Road Safety Partnership-Philippines, among others, will use flash cards to raise awareness and inform children on the importance of road safety. The project will run for six months for grade-five students, in a total of ten public schools.”These schools were selected for the pilot project because they are located in accident-prone areas,” explained Dante Lantin, Department of Transport and Communications, to the news site, Top Gear Philippines. He added that the grade-five students were chosen because “at ages 10 to 12, they are left to walk to and from their schools by themselves.”
The Global Road Safety Partnership-Philippines hopes that by using colourful flashcards that depict every day scenarios on the road, it will catch children’s attention. “We also aim to help teachers find an effective method to bring road safety education into the classroom,” explained Cynthia Reyes, Executive Advocacy Assistant for the Automobile Association Philippines and Global Road Safety Partnership focal point.
After the six-month pilot test, children’s knowledge on road safety will be assessed, and necessary improvements made on the flash cards and methods of instruction before the project is expanded nationwide.
