Amma Oduro-Dankwah of Amend, Ghana. wrote a blog piece about her experiences at the Global Meeting.
“I attended pre-meeting workshops on NGO partnerships with multilateral banks, child-centered road safety education, addressing gender and risk in road safety and safe school journeys. I learned about so many issues that are usually overlooked when considering road safety. For instance, with respect to gender issues, women in certain cultures find it difficult to position themselves properly on motorcycles due to the nature of their traditional clothing. As such many women sit sideways on motorcycles, preventing them from having a firmer grip while the motorcycle is in motion. Although it may seem trivial, this increases the risk of injuries.
Malaysia has done a great job in promoting road safety and it was an apt venue for the meeting. There are various lessons for Amend’s work in Africa from Malaysians and their zeal for safer roads. One thing I was impressed by was the provision of motorcycle lanes on highways and expressways. It is commendable that vehicles on Malaysian roads have been segregated by type, to minimize collisions. The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) has also taken the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal to halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes by 2020 very seriously. As part of their long-term goal, MIROS has introduced road safety education as part of the regular school curriculum, such that, future leaders, road engineers, drivers and road users are being trained to constantly have road safety in mind. Hopefully, all this can someday be replicated in Ghana, my home country.”
Read the full post HERE.
Image courtesy of Richard Ahlstrom.
