PRESS RELEASE: Advocate training leads to safe school commitment

H ΕΥΘΥΤΑ, είναι μέλος  PRESS RELEASE: ADVOCATE TRAINING LEADS TO SAFE SCHOOLS COMMITMENT 16 March 2018 Yesterday, grassroots NGO members of the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety received the commitment of Kenyan policy makers to implement measures that will mean safer journeys for the 2000 children that walk to a suburban Nairobi school every day. The commitment was made at a panel discussion featuring representatives from the Kenyan Ministry of Education, National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), and WHO. The panel discussion was the culmination of a week-long Alliance Advocate training course where 20 NGO leaders from 13 countries across Africa took part in a demonstration safe schools project. Earlier in the week, they collected road data around the school in suburban Nairobi and analyzed it. They presented their data and recommendations to the panel and received feedback on how to engage decision makers. Vitally, the demonstration project is easily replicable in other African countries, and Advocates are now taking their new skills back to their home countries to implement similar initiatives. The Alliance Advocate training program is the flagship element of the Alliance Empowerment Program, an innovative capacity-building program, sponsored by FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), which has so far seen 50 Advocates trained in data collection and analysis, evidence-based program design and management, media engagement, and advocacy. Lotte Brondum, Executive Director of the Alliance, said, “The Alliance Advocate training has given our member NGOs experience of a real-life evidence-based road safety project that has led to real-life results. We have demonstrated through the training this week that data-driven advocacy can bring commitments and results that will save lives. These 20 Alliance Advocates take home skills that will enable them to make their countries safer school by school. The motto of the training this week has been ‘think big, start small, and act quickly.’ We anticipate that by the end of 2018, that at least 20 schools around Africa, and thousands of children who walk along unsafe roads to school every day will be safer because of the projects our Advocates will run.” Mike Higley, Vice President, Sub-Saharan Africa Operations, FedEx Express, said, “Through our FedEx Cares program, which will have invested $200 million in 200 communities worldwide by 2020, we are dedicated to saving lives and developing solutions that responsibly and sustainably make roads safer. The Alliance Empowerment program is one of the ways that we build the capacity of NGOs to be the voice and hands of road safety on the roads of Africa.”