Rwanda National Police (RNP) and Rwanda Football Federation (Ferwafa) re-launched a joint partnership in Gerayo Amahoro road safety campaign, on Saturday, January 28. The awareness, through football, officially resumed during the national league match between Rayon Sports and Mukura Victory Club at Huye Stadium. The RNP spokesperson, Commissioner of Police (CP) John Bosco Kabera, and Ferwafa president, Olivier Mugabo Nizeyimana, presided over the resumption of the campaign at Huye stadium. The same event was also held at the match between APR and Kiyovu at Muhanga stadium. The partnership is in line with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two institutions to raise awareness on safer road usage, through football. Under this framework, Gerayo Amahoro messages will be disseminated in the course of different football tournaments, including Peace Cup and Primus National League, and other competitions organized by Ferwafa, a joint statement by the two institutions, reads in part. Through this partnership, the ongoing awareness campaign will be extended to football fanatics in all stadiums across the country. This comes to reinforce other ongoing efforts to influence behavioral change and to prevent accidents resulting from human behaviors. It is a continuous awareness targeting all groups of road users to drive change from observing traffic rules and regulations as a law to making right choices while using the road and ultimately a culture. CP Kabera, while speaking on Rwanda Television earlier on Saturday, said that football fans also use the road, sometimes recklessly. We are taking Gerayo Amahoro campaign to players and football fans in stadiums because they are also road users. These are driver's, passengers, motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians in one place, who will be sensitized on how safe to use the road, and rights of every group of road users, which should be respected, he said. The ultimate goal, he added, is for the fans to leave their homes with a mindset of using the road safely as the only choice and culture, support their teams and go back to their respective destinations safe, but also ensuring that the way they use the road guarantees the safety of other road users. Under this framework, team captains will also be conveying road safety messages to their fans and football lovers, before the match kicks off, to instill a culture of safer road usage to their supporters. Ferwafa boss Mugabo observed that the safety of players and their supporters is key in football. Gerayo Amahoro campaign is about the health and safety of the people, and we are also road users. Accidents claim lives of many people, so that equally becomes our responsibility to address the root cause of these fatalities to save lives. We need to mind the way we use the road as we go to officiate matches, as players and supporters, Mugabo said. Road safety messages delivered to people at stadiums, he said, will be spread and that this arrangement will influence many others to be agents of road security either on their way home or in their different groups and communities.
