Every year 186 300 children die from road traffic crashes around the world. That’s more than 500 children every day. Road traffic injury ranks among the top four causes of death for all children over the age of five years.

Safe Roads, Safe Kids! aims to build an evidence-based case that can be replicated in the rest of Morocco and exported also to other francophone countries. In its first phase, the initiative is targeting some of the poorest schools in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, where the children confront severe risks on their daily journey. Children can face traffic speeding at over 60km/h on their journey to and from school. They are typically exposed and unprotected with the majority travelling as pedestrians, walking from their homes to school.

The first school targeted is the Rhamna Primary School in the Sidi Moumen district of Casablanca, an area characterised by relatively high levels of poverty. Situated on a busy intersection, this school has over 1000 pupils, with nearly all walking to their classes each day. There is little protection for the children of Rhamna, a lack of safe sidewalks, few safe crossings and existing road infrastructure which does not slow traffic speed where children are present.

At Rhamna Primary, the IRF, MCM and their partners will use iRAP’s ‘Star Rating for Schools’ methodology to assess the safety of the surrounding road network, and will present a 1-5 star rating. The partners will also work with AMEND’s methodology to identify which countermeasures – such as safe sidewalks, road humps and crossings – should be implemented to reduce risk and improve safety.

Safe Roads, Safe Kids! will then be implemented at two further schools, the Moussa Ibnou Noussaïr school, also in Sidi Moumen, and the Tit Mellil school, a rural primary school.

Following the training of local partners, and the campaign for drivers and children, the training of trainers workshop was hosted in Casablanca on 29 and 30 October.

The project has been selected by the FIA Foundation to be presented at its General Assembly which was hosted this year in St. Petersburg on 6th December.

For more info, please contact IRF Secretariat at info[@]irfnet.ch