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 Nairobi school every day, on the back of Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) assessments.

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, with training from iRAP and Youth for Road Safety (YOURS).

Earlier in the week, a site visit to St. Dominic School in Nairobi allowed the participants to use the paper version of the SR4S app to carry out attribute coding of the school area.  The participants then reviewed their results, proposed countermeasures to improve the school zone and saw the impact of their countermeasures.  They presented these needs to the Kenyan Authorities in charge of safety (National Transport Safety Authority, Kenya), received feedback on how to engage decision makers and received a commitment from the Chief Executive to get the recommendations implemented.  The Kenyan participants were requested to produce a report for the NTSA so he could champion the work. T

The practical road safety promotion and advocacy training course aimed to empower participants on how to speak to stakeholders and the importance of data.  iRAP’s role was to introduce the participants to iRAP and explain the methodology in brief as well as how to use the Star Rating for Schools app.

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.

Click here and here to read the press releases.