Printable Version Safe Kids Foundation- India and FedEx Express team up to focus on Children’s Road traffic Safety

Global Child safety advocates at Safe Kids Worldwide took an important step towards making children safer pedestrians around the world through Photo Voice. The main purpose of this project was to capture the pedestrian environment through the eyes of children utilizing photography by students.

A grant from FedEx enabled the Safe Kids Worldwide Walk This Way program to teach children about safe pedestrian behavior while working with schools and communities to improve walking environments. This project gave children in Brazil, Canada, China, India (Mumbai), South Korea, the Philippines and the United States the opportunity to document the road environments they encounter as they walk to school with photos and words to help them learn proper road traffic safety and become safer pedestrians.

In Mumbai, the International Photovoice exhibition was held on 27th September, 2008 which was open to the public on 27th September, 2008 and on 28th September, 2008.

PHOTOVOICE: Children’s Perspectives on Road Traffic Safety

Globally 1,676 child participants of the PHOTOVOICE project took photographs of their pedestrian environments, including behaviours demonstrated by pedestrians and drivers, as well as dangerous obstacles and conditions that the children felt posed a risk to their pedestrian safety. 

Eighteen children, mainly from Bharat Scouts and Guides, participated in this project, in Mumbai. The project started with an orientation program for parents and volunteers and an Educational Sessions on Pedestrian Safety and photography for children.  The children were then given cameras and taken on field trips to 3 areas of Mumbai - Churchgate/CST, Mahim and Chembur. The areas were selected to get a view of south, central and suburban Mumbai.

“Mumbai, with its traffic and population has its own hazards and challenges. This intensifies the need to understand hazards children face as pedestrians and develop strategies to lessen the same” said Mr. Mahendra Mehta, Trustee, Safe Kids Foundation.

“We work with Safe Kids on road safety programs in many countries as safety is top priority for FedEx. We believe it is important to improve education in child pedestrian safety. Photovoice is a remarkable approach to understand children’s awareness on road safety”, said Jacques Creeten, Vice President, India FedEx Express.

Selected photos, each accompanied by an editorial statement from the child photographer, was on display in seven cities -- Sao Paolo, Toronto, Beijing, Mumbai, Seoul, Manila, and Washington, D.C., to celebrate International Walk To School Month in October.  For more information or to view the photo exhibits, visit www.safekids.org/walk.

“By chronicling their environments, identifying risk factors and distinguishing between safe and unsafe pedestrian behaviors, PHOTOVOICE is helping kids become safer pedestrians all around the world,” said Mitch Stoller, president and chief executive officer of Safe Kids Worldwide.