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Abstract
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Background In the Philippines, there are over 23 Million children who walk to and from the school and are at risk of being injured on the road. At least, 96,000 Filipino children under 14 years are injured or killed every year because of road traffic crashes and the majority of the victims (70-75%) are child pedestrians. There is a need to educate these children on safe walking.
Methods Safe Kids Worldwide Philippines (SKWP) developed the Young Road Safety Advocate Program (SKFYRSAP) the "peer to peer" approach in teaching pedestrian safety to children. SKWP first organised stakeholders meetings. The 600 students were chosen; twelve (12) young senior leaders and honoured students per school of ten (10) schools in five (5) cities were trained on the Walk This Way, the pedestrian safety program. After the training, they were fielded to teach young students in their own school. Each trained student was able to teach one to three sections of Grades III and IV.
Results The program reached 79,788 students from the 5 Cities. It successfully trained 600 students who taught their "peers" about pedestrian safety with the guidance of a teacher -coordinator in each school. The results of the pre and post tests administered to 5,067 students revealed that the knowledge about safe road behaviours among participants increased. For example, the number of students who answered the question on looking left right left direction before crossing the street increased from 24 percent to 69 percent in post- tests. Students also showed an increase in their recognition and understanding of road signs.
Conclusions It is successful in teaching pedestrian safety to children as shown in the results of the pre and post-tests where there was an increase of knowledge on pedestrian safety. It maximises the young senior leader students to teach younger students especially if we work closely with their teacher-coordinators. It can be considered as a sustainable program and can be easily replicated.
Abstract from Safety 2016 World Conference, 18-21 September 2016; Tampere, Finland. Copyright © 2016 The author(s), Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions
Language: en |