Saving schoolchildren from road accidents

Karachi
According to the United Nations’ World Health Organisation, a child dies in a road accident every four minutes globally and about 95 percent of the fatalities occur in middle and low-income countries.
Seemi Saad, the head of external affairs of a multinational petroleum company, presented these views at a ceremony to spread road safety awareness among school-going children at The Citizens Foundation (TCF) School, Riaz Tata campus, Korangi 4.
The Shell Pakistan organised the event in collaboration with TCF and the Traffic Police Karachi where eminent social personalities spoke to a large number of schoolchildren.
Saad said the United Nations was commemorating the third Global Road Safety Week from May 4 till 10 to raise awareness about children’s safety on the roads and to encourage the relevant stakeholders to take measures to address the issue, and the event at the TCF school was being celebrated to mark the occasion.
“Many of the children in Pakistan who walk to schools along transport routes and highways put themselves in danger,” she said. “Creating road safety awareness amongst children will help minimise that risk as well as enable them to positively influence their families and friends.”
She said the video launched at the event to raise road safety awareness was a fun and interactive way to help children learn about basic traffic rules and safety measures.
She hoped that it would help the people across the country learn more about road safety. It was also informed that the petroleum company was holding the ninth global Safety Days with a theme ‘Achieving Goal Zero… Because We Care” and road safety videos would be shown at petrol pumps and different schools on May 6.
Muhammad Ayaz Khan, the provincial administrator and finance assistant of the WHO Sindh, lauded the efforts of the organisers to help children become aware of traffic safety rules.
He said it was direly needed to promote such activities at a large level to save the lives of future architects.
Eminent faces of society spoke to the children in interesting ways to help them realise the importance of the occasion.
The event featured a live infotainment show. The show included TCF students performing an educational song on road safety and a quiz that tested children about their knowledge on the topic.
Inspector Arif of the Karchi Traffic Police asked the children to spread the knowledge they received at the event among their families and friends.
He said the new DIGP traffic, Dr Amir Ahmed Sheikh, had taken remarkable steps to improve the services of the department and he had introduced Twitter service to let people know about traffic jams and other news regarding traffic in the city.
He said the department was also working to spread traffic safety awareness at several schools of the metropolis.