The Road Safety Club at Saint Joseph School is a unique club that serves to help and improve our community. Our main mission was to rehabilitate and fix a road that leads to the main entrance of the Rosary School at Cornet Al Hamra.
The ideas
During our first brainstorming meeting, the students tackled various problems that are present in our community. To begin, they first discussed the conflicts that people encounter on the road that negatively affect their health and which lead to fatal consequences. They were very interested in working to develop safer road designs to enhance infrastructure. For example, they presented solutions to many road problems that we face such as unmarked bumps or ones which are placed inappropriately on main roads and highways. They also proposed efficient and productive work plans that will help in the process of urbanization. Moreover, our students discussed the problem that we encounter every day; traffic. In fact, they claimed that traffic is the main cause of stress and many other health problems. It is evident that traffic leads workers and students to arrive late. We met with the municipality of Cornet Chehwan in order to fix one such traffic problem and organise the entry and exit of cars at the main gate of our school, yet this project was unfortunately not feasible due to several circumstances. Nevertheless, these committed students debated how to make school entry and exits safer. They decided to examine every point listed above and join them in a unified project that would allow them to achieve all the objectives in one big mission. Hence, after much research and investigation, it was agreed to reconstruct and recondition the main entrance of a school in order to protect lives and reduce accident risks. Our main target was the roads that lead to the entrance of schools. Therefore, we thought that the Rosary School at Cornet Al Hamra would be the best location to execute our project.
The initiatives
In order to accomplish our mission, we first contacted the municipality of Cornet Al Hamra so that we could set a work plan and start the execution of our project. We met with Mr. George El Khoury, a member of the municipality, and we discussed everything related to our plan. The municipality was very cooperative and their response was much appreciated since they offered their help in order to complete the project. Second, we contacted people and associations to sponsor our project and to provide the necessary materials. Their response was very positive and we were directly able to provide a big amount of money since our sponsors believed that this program will help students develop road designing skills accompanied by the spirit of volunteerism and teamwork. Third, on Saturday April 15, 2017, we met on location and we stared to put the necessary signs and mirrors, along with cleaning the roundabout in order to plant flowers and trees inside it. The second phase of the execution was on Saturday April 22, 2017. With the help of our sponsors and the municipality, we were able to spread the asphalt and paint the necessary lines on the road. We then planted two big olive trees and beautified the roundabout with more than fifty small pots of colored flowers.
Finally, this is how we, the students of Saint Joseph School Cornet Chehwan, were able to neaten and arrange the road leading to the Rosary School at Cornet Al Hamra. The residents of the village much appreciated our efforts and group work. They encouraged this distinctive concept of community service.
