Activists move to protect students from road accidents

Traffic Police has said that it is everyone’s duty to prevent road accidents that take away lives of many people. The remark was made on Saturday in Kigali during a one-day meeting that brought together Traffic police, RURA,Ministry of Youth, Students and teachers to discuss their responsibility to ensure safe and efficiency of students going and coming from their respective schools. The meeting was organised by Healthy People Rwanda in partnership with International Medical Cooperation Committee-FAIR. Under the theme, “Road safety starts with you”, the meeting was an opportunity for various stakeholders to discuss how they can work together to ensure that students among other young children are safe from road accidents. The statistics presented during the meeting shows that since January-May 2015, 200 people died and 300 seriously got injured in road accidents while in 2016 the number has decreased to 114 of deaths, 230 injuries and 730 with minor injuries. According to Senior Supt. Jean Marie Vianney Ndushabandi, the spokesperson for traffic and road safety department, road accidents have deacresed since speed governors were installed in cars. Ndushabandi said that traffic police had deployed assistants who help students to safely cross roads. “More awareness is need for all people about road safety and how they can provide first aid to the victims. It is everyone’s duty to fight against road accidents. Sometimes children become the victims of road accidents because they don’t have guards. More efforts are needed especially in the schools near the roads,”he said. Mie Polk Activity leader of IMCC Fair said that the standard of road has been improved but there is need of creating awareness to all users. “Our main task is to reduce the morbidity and mortality of road traffic accidents among children and young people in Kigali through improved knowledge and skills in this topics. We want to promote road safety and first aid in the country. Until now, we have started training students and started clubs to create awareness on the proper use of roads among children,”Polk said. International Medical Cooperation Committee-FAIR is now working with 20 schools and 5 driving schools to teach students on road safety and First Aid. During this month, IMCC-FAIR will conduct an assessment of roads near schools. A senior 5 student at Efotek Kanombe, Samuel Hagenimana, said that the road safety club in their school has been helpful to students who cross roads going to schools daily. “We have been cautioning our fellow students on how to use the roads efficiently like respecting road signs and avoid any activity in the middle of the roads. Also, we are trained them on how to provide first Aid in case of any accident,” Hagenimana said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Activists move to protect students from road accidents