COBIS Student Road Safety Campaign
Social media campaign activity for COBIS Students during UN Global Road Safety Week (6-12 May)
COBIS partnered with the FIA Foundation charity, to give schools and students the opportunity to participate in a global call for action for safe and healthy streets, during the United Nations Global Road Safety Week from 6-12 May 2019.
Young people, schools, and their communities are affected by poor air quality and the impact of road traffic and this is an opportunity for them to express their concerns and urge leaders to act. Schools, students, individuals, government and non-government organisations, international agencies and civil society around the world took action during this week.
The FIA Foundation invited COBIS Schools around the world to take part in a campaign called 'This is my street'.
What is the 'This is my street' campaign?
The “This is my street” campaign led by the Child Health Initiative has a mission to ensure that every child has a safe and healthy journey to school by 2030. Every day around the world more than 3000 children, the equivalent of two large secondary schools, are killed or seriously injured by road traffic. Millions are breathing dirty air. In February 2020, Sweden will bring together government ministers from across the world to an important meeting to discuss road safety and agree new global steps to tackle the issue.
The “This is my street” campaign encourages schools, students and young people around the world to raise your voices and have your say. Your messages will contribute to the global call for leaders to bring road traffic injuries (the #1 killer of young people) and toxic air, which affects the health of millions more, to the top of the global agenda, including by organising the first-ever summit of world leaders to address the most important health issues for adolescents.
Getting your students involved
1. Research of the global and local contexts. Learn about the global impact of unsafe roads and vehicle emissions and how they are affecting adolescent health. Also, how these issues have wider repercussions for all the Sustainable Development Goals, including access to education, poverty elimination, climate change, etc. Students will also learn about solutions and what action is currently being taken to tackle this crisis. Also look at the issues locally by discussing or evaluating the situation around their own school, the students’ neighbourhoods and even the city or country the school is in. How are these affecting the community?
2. Discuss solutions and create concise, powerful messages that would be asking for action on these solutions from decision makers and policy makers. What would the students ask their local, city or country leader to do to improve the situation?
3. Prepare social media messaging using students' own messages. Use the resources in the campaign pack to complement these messages. Find out who makes the decisions in your locality and how to contact them and involve them in the campaign, should the students wish to do so.
4. Join the “this is my street” campaign by signing up on the campaign website.
5. Launch the campaign during the week of 6-12 May, UN Global Road Safety Week and share the messages on the schools’ social media platforms encouraging their networks to join the campaign.
6. Submit your feedback/ideas/concerns on the issues through a questionnaire. The FIA Foundation will collate this feedback and present the opinions of young people to ministers attending the 2020 road safety conference in Sweden.
Complete the FIA Foundation Road Safety and Air Quality survey
More information
Find out more about FIA Foundation on their website:
If you have any questions regarding this activity, please email students@cobis.org.uk.
Terms and Conditions
Please ensure that you have read the Terms and Conditions of this activity before participating.
Note: This activity will ideally include photos of students in groups; photo consent for each participating student will be required.
