"Achievements in June and July"

Dear Road Safety Stakeholders,

Much work is done while we are not pulled away from the office by school events and conferences during June and July. We are preparing for a busy school year in Vietnam and Thailand, for the Clinton Global Initiative and several other road safety conferences throughout the fall, and will launch the Nicaragua Helmet Vaccine Initiative in a few weeks.

As always, we appreciate your interest in our work, and look forward to hearing from you and of your activities.

Warmest Regards,

Greig Craft
President/CEO
AIP Foundation/Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative

 

Table of Contents

1. Recent Events

• Nicaragua Delegation Visits Protec Helmet Factory
• Senegal Ministry of Transport Visits Vietnam
• Chevron and Partners Sponsor Helmets for Kids Road Safety Event at Batam Primary School

2. News Updates

• The North American Regional Office of the International Union of Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) proposes a global road safety resolution
• Recent reports study the benefits of volunteer programs to business
• The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads launched a TVC for motorcyclists
• New Traffic Rules in Vietnam create problems

3. Vietnam

4. Cambodia

• Launch of the Road Safety in 10 Countries (RS10) initiative
• National Workshop on Helmet Wearing and Drink Driving (RS10)

5. Thailand

6. Did you know...

 

Recent Events

Nicaragua Delegation Visits Protec Helmet Factory

Hanoi - 21 June 2010

Hanoi - 21 June 2010, A Government delegation from Nicaragua, led by Major Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez Kraudy, National Transit Chief and Mr Alvaro Lacayo, President of the Automobile Club of Nicaragua, and a member of the National Traffic Safety Committee of Nicaragua, visited AIP Foundation in Hanoi and the Protec Helmet assembly plant in the Noi Bai Industrial Zone. The trip was a fact-finding mission and an information sharing opportunity for the Nicaraguan delegation, AIP Foundation and its international affiliate, the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative. In anticipation of initiating programs under the Nicaragua Helmet Vaccine Initiative, AIP Foundation and Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative representatives collaborated with the National Police to develop a strategic road safety plan for Nicaragua. The construction of a not-for-profit helmet assembly plant based on the Vietnam Protec model is a central component of the development plan.

Photo: Nicaragua Delegate visits Protec factory

Technical assistance, school-based projects, public awareness campaigns and police training are also key elements of the Vietnam-Nicaragua collaboration. AIP Foundation organized a donation of fifteen hi-tech radar guns from the Australian Police to the Nicaragua National Police.

During the visit to Vietnam, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Nicaraguan delegation and the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative, which affirmed their role as the Lead Organization for program implementation.

Photo: The delegation meets with NTSC

Photo: Representatives from the Nicaragua Delegation, AIP Foundation and the NTSC

The Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative will donate 1,000 Protec helmets from Vietnam to the Nicaraguan Police, as well as helmet to children and motorcycle taxi drivers on 19 August 2010.

 

Senegal Ministry of Transport Visits Vietnam

Hanoi - 30 June 2010

A Government delegation from Senegal including Mr. Bassirou Guisse, Acting Minister of Telecommunications, ICT and Transport, and Mr. Drame Seck, Director of Land Transport, met with the Vietnam Ministry of Transport and NTSC. The trip served primarily as a best practices exchange for the government partners and provided an opportunity for the Senegalese delegation to visit the AIP Foundation facilities in Hanoi and Protec helmet factory in Noi Bai. The launch of the Senegal Helmet Vaccine Initiative, the country-level implementing body of the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative, took place in March 2010, providing motorcycle helmets and road safety awareness to citizens in the country's capital, Dakar, and the provincial city of Ziguinchor. The Initiative will continue throughout the year, promoting helmet use to protect vulnerable road users on the nation's roads. The construction of a not-for-profit helmet assembly plant based on the Vietnam Protec model is a central component of the development plan for West Africa.

Photo: Senegal MOT Acting Minister Mr. Bassirou Guisse meets with Vietnam MOT Minister Ho Nghia Dung Photo: The Minister visits Protec Helmet Factory

Technical assistance, school-based projects, public awareness campaigns and police training are also key elements of the Vietnam-Senegal collaboration.

Photo: Vietnam Ministry of Transportation led by Minister Ho Nghia Dzung

Photo: Senegal Ministry of Transport delegation led by Acting Minister of Transport Bassirou Guisse

Photo: Laser International representatives

 

Chevron and Partners Sponsor Helmets for Kids Road Safety Event at Batam Primary School

Batam, Indonesia 29 July 2010

The Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation with corporate sponsors Chevron Corporation, Mitsui Exploration Co., Ltd. (MOECO), and PTT Exploration and Production Public Company, Ltd. (PTTEP) hosted a Helmets for Kids road safety event at Batu Ampar Primary School in Batam. The sponsors donated 650 motorbike helmets to students and teachers at the opening ceremony.

This event marks the launch of a yearlong Helmets for Kids initiative, a school-based helmet distribution and education program, piloted by the AIP Foundation in Vietnam. Batu Ampar Primary School is the first Indonesian school to benefit from the AIP Foundation's road safety programs, which are being implemented in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.

"We are pleased to bring our work to Indonesia, which has one of the highest percentages of motorbike-related fatalities in the region. Protecting children by providing helmets and road safety education is truly a public health necessity" said Mirjam Sidik, Executive Director of the AIP Foundation.

Guests from Chevron, MOECO and PTTEP, as well as representatives of the Batam government, police agencies, the National Education Department and AIP Foundation participated in the opening ceremony.

Prior to the launch event, AIP Foundation staff led parents and teachers in the "Train the Trainers" workshop, which empowers them to foster a proactive road safety environment at the school. AIP Foundation and the program sponsors will be responsible for monitoring progress throughout the 2010-2011 school year and replacing lost or damaged helmets.

 

News Updates

The North American Regional Office of the International Union of Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) proposes a global road safety resolution

Geneva, Switzerland, 14 July

The IUHPE proposed a Resolution for Global Road Safety at the 20th Conference of the IUHPE in July. This resolution will be finalized and voted on in the coming weeks.

The resolution recognizes that road traffic crashes kill more people each year than communicable diseases like TB, and that there are effective interventions to curb this epidemic. The IUHPE therefore called all members to support the UN Decade of Action on Road Safety through active partnerships, fundraising and garnering political support in middle- and low-income countries to support road safety initiatives.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FIA Foundation and the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative are among the endorsers of this resolution. The GHVI endorsement is as follows:

"The Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative (GHVI), an international helmet use and traffic safety initiative, strongly supports the Resolution to Support Global Road Safety, as GHVI is committed to reducing road traffic injuries globally over the Decade of Action for Road Safety."

 

Recent reports study the benefits of volunteer programs to business

AIP Foundation staff put together a literature review of the benefits to the business of corporations who organize volunteer opportunities for their employees and contribute to the community. For more information on these studies, please contact Ms. Carolyn Smith-Lin (carolyn.smith@aipf-vietnam.org). Main conclusions include:

• Nearly 50% of those surveyed by BBMG Research believe that it's "extremely" or "very important" that the company where you choose to work is socially responsible.' In fact, according to the Power Skills study, social responsibility is one of the key factors job prospects use in evaluating a potential employer.'
• The findings of the study "How Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Organizational Commitment" published in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2009 revealed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) to social and non-social stakeholders, employees, and customers were the significant predictors of organizational commitment.
• A recent study found that when traditional customer-buying criteria, such as price, quality, and convenience are equal, 81% of customers would switch brands if a company practised CSR (Caribbean Business, May 2004).
• According to a New Zealand study, 60-70% of respondents in the USA, Great Britain, Australia and Canada said that they had rewarded or punished a company in the last year because of its CSR reputation (Environics, 2002).
• The annual PricewaterhouseCoopers global survey "The World's most respected companies" (2004) was based on more than 1,000 interviews of CEOs across 25 countries, in four subject areas: Shareholder value, CSR, Corporate governance, and Innovation. The top 10 in the list of "Companies that best demonstrate their commitment to CSR" are Microsoft, Toyota, BP, General Electric, IBM, Royal Dutch/Shell, Johnson and Johnson, Honda, McDonald's and WalMart. Five of these MNC are also among the top 10 in the list of "The World's most respected companies"

We are honored to work with four of these companies in road safety. We offer volunteer opportunities for sponsors through our Safe Routes to School program, incorporating traffic safety activities into the students' curriculum throughout the school year and giving the sponsor's employees the chance to work with the school when installing traffic safety corners, safe parental pick-up and drop-off zones.

 

The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads launched a TVC for motorcyclists

With the slogan "Be aware, take care, survive." the ad shows a motorcycle crash and then rewinds time to demonstrate how the driver could have avoided the accident. This advertisement was created with extensive research on the most effective techniques and messages for behavior change in motorcycle drivers in Queensland.

This highlights the importance of education in effecting social behavior change. Even with effective enforcement, supportive laws and high compliance rates, drivers must be educated on the negative impact of unsafe driving, and on the positive changes to make to ensure that they and their family remain healthy and uninjured.

AIP Foundation partners grass-roots, school-based programs with nationwide mass media public awareness campaigns because we recognize that providing helmets to the community alone will not save drivers and passengers from death or injury. Designing hard-hitting campaigns with researched messages to target the challenges in each country, AIP Foundation works to ensure that people not only wear helmets properly, but that they understand the safety value of helmets, and the importance of safe road behavior.

To view the advertisement, please click here

 

New Traffic Rules in Vietnam create problems

A recent article in the Vietnam News, an English-language daily newspaper published in Vietnam, voiced the frustration of enforcement officials and drivers due to the new Decree 34, which associates fines with non-helmet use for children from the age of six.

Challenges range from inadequate infrastructure to support pedestrian safety, the difficulty of identifying the age of passengers without identity cards, and stipulations that ignore the reality of the sidewalk and streets of many of Vietnam's cities.

The AIP Foundation, the United Nations, and road safety stakeholders everywhere applaud Vietnam for the enactment of Decree 34, which came into effect on 20 May 2010. It is a major step towards child safety on the roads, and the increase of fines associated with drink driving and reckless driving behavior targets the majority of the causes of many traffic-related deaths and injuries in Vietnam. This recent article however, highlights the importance of legislation that is culturally appropriate and created with input from all road safety stakeholders.

This is why the AIP Foundation collaborates with local NGOs and government partners when implementing road safety programs in developing countries around the world as a part of the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative. Tantamount to saving lives and preventing injury is knowledge of the community, the laws and the landscape. Effective road safety intervention requires the expertise of multi-sector partners. For more information on GHVI and AIP Foundation's partners, please visit the website

 

Vietnam

Intel Products Vietnam Ltd. has confirmed sponsorship for AIP Foundation's Safe Routes to School and Helmets for Kids programs. AIP Foundation and Intel have enjoyed a strong partnership in Vietnam. This is the third school Intel will sponsor with a traffic safety education program, and before collaborating through AIP Foundation's school-based programs, Intel was a member of the Vietnam Helmet Wearing Coalition, funding our public awareness education.

 

Cambodia

Launch of the Road Safety in 10 Countries (RS10) initiative

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 19 July

The official launching of the RS10 project in Cambodia funded by Bloomberg Philanthropy took place at the Sunway Hotel of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. H.E Touch Chankosal, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport and Deputy Chairman of the National Road Safety Committee of Cambodia presided over the event that drew 86 participants from NGOs, government road safety stakeholders, the police and the media.

The RS10 Consortium partners in Cambodia - the World Health Organization (WHO), Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) - will work together to stimulate a visible and measurable difference in road deaths and injury in Cambodia. The consortium will work in three provinces in Cambodia to address two risk factors. Based on evidence of need, implementation will focus on Phnom Penh Municipality and in the Kandal and Kompong Speu Provinces and address helmet wearing and drink driving during the day and at night. The National Road Safety Committee of Cambodia will work closely with these partners to implement these programs.

A model of how the work in the three intervention sites will be documented so that the project can be replicated nationally when the second tranche of funding comes through.

 

National Workshop on Helmet Wearing and Drink Driving (RS10)

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 20 - 21 July 2010

In connection to the Road Safety in 10 Countries consortium, a national workshop on helmet use and drink driving was held at the Imperial hotel of Cambodia. H.E Touch Chankosal, Secretary of State of Ministry of Public Works and Transport and Deputy Chairman of the National Road Safety Committee of Cambodia presided over the event, while H.E Heang Buntheav, the Undersecretary of State of Ministry of Public Works and Transport organized the opening and closing of the forum. The 70 participants from the public, private and government sectors divided in to four groups to draft action plans for drink driving and helmet wearing in Cambodia.

The same workshop took place on the provincial level on 26-27 July 2010 and the commune level on 29-30 July 2010.

 

Thailand

Pathumthani Province, Thailand, 13 July 2010

Diversey Hygiene (Thailand) Co., Ltd., donated 324 students to the Wat Lanna School, the Glangklongsib School, and the Wat Adisorn School in Pathumthani Province.

AIP Foundation has worked with Diversey Hygiene (Thailand) Co., Ltd. in the past and welcomes this opportunity to partner once again. Key in this relationship is the dedication of Mr. Stephan Phang, a long-time supporter in both Thailand and Vietnam.

Representatives from the Education Authority, local government authority, police, Diversey Hygiene (Thailand) Co., Ltd. staff, students, teachers and parents participated in the three ceremonies that took place that day.

 

Did you know...

• Road accidents have become a serious concern of the Royal Government of Cambodia - road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death after AIDS in Cambodia
• The Asian Development Bank estimated that Viet Nam's economy lost VND30 billion (US$1.59 million) each year to first aid, treatment, rehabilitation and fewer working hours because of death and disease.
• A story by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on June 21, titled "Shock with helmet quality", claimed 71 per cent of helmets on the market in Vietnam, bearing the name of the certified manufacturers, are sub-standard.