As part of our participation in the Renault’s competition « Your ideas Your initiatives », we decided to chose the theme of motorbike’s accidents since there are many teen-riders at the school. We made up a sensitization video and a booklet in order to spread awareness among people generally and specifically teenagers.
The ideas
As middle year students of Al Madina Polo School, we adore challenges like Your Ideas YOUR Initiatives and our school stimulates us take part in various projects in which we can contribute to personal and community development.
We've been working on this project for about 10 weeks. The first thing we started with was browsing some educational materials from Safety and mobility for all and road4us website.
Road security is one of the major problems in our country. As living in Casablanca, the economical capital, traffic jam and accidents (especially motorcycles) frighten the population. However, citizens should feel safe and pleased outside. If all road users, pedestrian, cyclists, drivers and motor-riders respect the code, together we save lives.
We noticed that the Moroccan government launched a sensitization campaign through TV ads due to the increased rate of fatal accident. We made some researches and find out shocking information about motorbikes ‘deadly accidents. According to the WHO report, road accidents are the leading cause of death among kids and youth between 5and 29 years old. More than half of the victims are vulnerable users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. 1.35 million Dead per year = 1 dead per 24seconds. Furthermore, the Moroccan Ministry of Equipment, Transport, Logistics and Water declared that 3.384 dead: 869 pedestrian and1.235 two and three wheelers in 2019.
We decided to conduct a survey in order to know people’s feedback and experiences. First of all, We shared it through social media ( FaceBook , WhatsApp and instagram) since we are still under the lock-down. Then after analyzing the data, we found out that majority who answered our form were teenagers (our target). The highest majority were motor-bikers (78,%). More than a half of the people went through accidents as a pedestrian or in a vehicle (52%). 57% of our sample consider speed as the major cause of accidents and 50% recommend harsher punishment to decrease the rate of accidents.
The initiatives
After our discussions, our research and findings we concluded that we had to sensitize people on the importance of respecting the road code. We organized ourselves and divided tasks between us. Each group was in charge of a particular task: drawings, preparing videos, editing and writing, make dissemination using social media.
We wrote a letter to the security mandate to invite them to come to our school to make a sensitization campaign. We organized our campaign in the national day of safety road. The conference was really beneficial and there was a good interaction between authorities and students. They were very pleased with our work. We also invited the journalist laanaya Nadia who published our campaign internationally through an Egyptian website Al Watan.
During the quarantine, so many things changed. Through several zoom meetings, we discussed our further steps and how to adapt to the new circumstances to continue our project.
We wanted to produce a powerful content that goes immediately to teens’ heart and brain and a small film was our final decision where we played the role of some members and friends of an imaginary student who passed away because of a motorbike accident. We also created a rap song that we included in our video. We did everything by ourselves: drawings, the rap song, the script, shooting and editing etc. We worked on all the details to make it look like a real story. We shared the video on YouTube as well as many Facebook and WhatsApp groups to reach a great audience and guarantee an efficient and constructive outcome which would be citizens' behaviors respecting the traffic rules.
We also created a survey in google forms to know people’s feedback about the quality of our video. 115 person answered our form, the majority were women and teens (15-20) were the ones who interacted the most. The absolute majority liked our video (96.5 %). 93% considered it as emotionally touching. 94% found that the characters were convincing. The message was very clear according to these 99.1%. Finally, our aim was clearly achieved since 97.4% think to change their behavior towards the respect of the road code after watching our video and considered it as worth sharing with others.
We also worked on a booklet that we wanted to distribute among people in the city. However, as we are confined, it was a bit difficult. That’s why each one of us shared it in our social media’s accounts. Once the lockdown ends we will distribute them at the school and also in each one’s neighborhood to guarantee a maximum sensitization.
To sum up, this experience was very positive, not only because of our process of learning and because of the knowledge we acquired but also for the possibility of contributing to our society.
