With the support of the FIA Foundation, the South African based road safety organisation Drive Alive has been working to raise the profile of road safety in South Africa’s schools through a series of awareness raising activities involving school pupils and teachers alike.
More than 1100 children under the age of 19 are killed on South Africa’s roads annually. Last year Drive Alive held a two day workshop for teachers from five high schools in the Thubatse region who together came up with ideas on how to incorporate road safety education in to the national curriculum in order to tackle this unacceptable death toll. As a result of the workshop a booklet for teachers has been printed providing sample lessons on road safety.
Drive Alive also worked with pupils at the schools where they performed their educative theatre show ‘Syabonana’ or ‘see and be seen’ and invited the pupils to come up with their own road safety themed performances. Pupils also took part in workshops where they wrote their own plays, song and poems and designed their own road safety posters which were entered into a competition.
At the media launch of the Drive Alive project on the 22 February, the MEC for Transport, the Mayor, dignitaries and road safety practitioners were present to see 4000 high school children presented with reflective backpacks to increase their visibility on the treacherous roads that they must face on a daily basis.