Save the Children convenes global road safety strategy meeting

May 3, 2017 by Child Health Initiative

Categories: Road Safety Tags: Save the Children

Save the Children brought together staff from across the world for a road safety workshop in Bangkok.

More than forty Save the Children officials have participated in a three day workshop to review the organisation’s interventions in child road traffic injury prevention.

Hosted by Save the Children Thailand, and chaired by Save the Children US Senior Director for School Health & Nutrition, Seung Lee, the meeting in Bangkok on May 1-3 2017 brought together representatives from Africa, South Asia, South East Asia and the Middle East. External participants providing expert presentations on aspects of road safety policy and child-focused interventions included the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation and the Global Road Safety Partnership. The event also heard from 100 Resilient Cities, an initiative which Save the Children is a partner in, about the strong connections between urban policy and design and action to prevent injuries to children.

FIA Foundation Executive Director Saul Billingsley, who attended the meeting and introduced the Global Initiative for Child Health & Mobility, said: “With the inclusion of road traffic injury targets in the SDGs, many organisations are responding. Save the Children has incredible global reach and expertise in child protection and health, and there is growing recognition across the organisation that child road traffic injury is an important child survival & development issue. We’re pleased to be working with Save the Children, through our child health initiative, to support activities and develop ideas for practical response.”

The workshop, co-funded by the FIA Foundation, was held ahead of the fourth UN Global Road Safety Week. The CEOs of Save the Children US, Carolyn Miles, and Save the Children UK, Kevin Watkins, have both signed on to a ‘Speed Vaccine’ campaign launched by the Global Initiative for Child Health & Mobility, which calls for urgent action to “reduce and enforce traffic speeds to a level safe for children everywhere, prioritising low speed zones in residential areas and near schools.”