Knowledge and skills for safer life on foot and wheels

We,the group of fifteen 7th grade students decided to do a road safety project because we wanted to make a personal contribution to our community.We come from Jakovo,a small village on the outskirts of Belgrade in Serbia.

We gathered and brainstormed some ideas We gathered and brainstormed some ideas.We are taught about importance of road safety both from parents and at school but number of accidents is still signigicant in our village. We wanted to put emphasis on knowledge and skills for making responsible choices in traffic.We did several workshops on these issues.

Starting from ourselves and our roles in traffic we decided to aim all 3 categories-pedestrians,cyclists and drivers.

We questioned what the worst part about road safety in our place was and we did some research.We took our cameras ,went on the streets and documented traffic at a few problematic spots.We concluded that there were a lot of bad things-people drinking and driving,talking on the mobile phones while driving, speeding.

Neither pedestrians nor cyclists were better-not paying attention while crossing the street,talking on the phone,running across the street not waiting for green lights.

We also concluded that people do not give enough importance to these bad statistics untill something bad happen to their loved ones.

Oh ,no- the situation was serious! We needed to refresh our knowledge and skills .We did some workshops among our peers and gave some lectures to our younger pupils.We alarmed the whole school,teachers and parents supported us but that wasn’t enough.

We needed to bring our village to its feet by our campaign We needed to bring our village to its feet by our campaign ! At the end of May we celebrated Days of school.We dedicated one day to our initative .We organised Traffic Safety Day- a big fair in schoolyard with various activities. Slow down in front of school

It was time for everyone to take exam on traffic regulations again !

We got an idea to share pedestrians,cyclists and drivers licenses We got an idea to share pedestrians,cyclists and drivers licenses.The licenses were made by the youngest pupils in our school(from 1st -4th grade).Each license was different and unique and each was made with a wish to contribute to our project and make our village safer.

SMART PEDESTRIAN LICENSE! SKILL BICYCLE LICENSE!CLEVER DRIVERS LICENSE!

SMART PEDESTRIAN LICENSE! SKILL BICYCLE LICENSE!CLEVER DRIVERS LICENSE!

Pupils from older classes made questions to which pedestrians,cyclists and drivers had to answer correctly two out of three given questions in order to receive our special license! We asked our pupils who are mostly pedestrians some questions and they weren’t bad at all.

We invited some important guests who helped us in realization of the project. Belgrade traffic police and Road traffic safety Agency , and citizen assosiation CORBS (center for sustainable development and traffic safety )joined us!

Road traffic safety agency lent us drunk glasses so we could see how the world looked like when you are drunk in order to know and never let driving and drinking come to our minds.We needed to walk in a straight line and it wasn’t easy.

Maybe we are young but we have knowledge!

Some of us are skillful cyclists ,so we demonstrated our skills on polygon.

The youngest pupils made drawings on the topic,revising what they learnt.

We made an exibition of their works which will stay in our school till the beginning of new semester.

Our initiative drew a lot of intention Our initiative drew a lot of intention. The local authorities were our guests .

Local tv did a coverge of our event!

On the following Sunday we talked about the project in a children’s show on a popular national radio station!

This was a very satisfying experience This was a very satisfying experience . Everyone had a lot of fun getting or revising knowledge and skills and we together with our teachers felt very proud.This was a giant leap for our ideas and initiative.Safe one ,of course!