“Youth can lead a road safety revolution”

Brenda Parmeggiani | Comunicação Vida Urgente

You may have heard the Foundation creator Diza Gonzaga saying that volunteers are the soul of Vida Urgente. And most of these volunteers are young people. Youth really need to be involved in defending life.

 

According to the latest report from the World Health Organization, road violence is the leading cause of death from 5 to 29 years old. Approximately 1 thousand young people lose their lives due to traffic injuries daily. And the numbers are even more severe among boys. These are losses that could be avoided.

That is why the Thiago Gonzaga Foundation, a founding member of YOURS - Youth for Road Safety, believes that young people play a very important role in building more humane and safer roads.

 

“It is very important young people are part of the road safety solution. Youth need to stop accepting that road traffic injuries are the #1 killer of young people. It is up to youth themselves to advocate for their rights to have safe mobility. They need to create an urgency that the needless killing on our roads must stop. Youth can lead a road safety revolution and energize road safety policies that must be put in place”, argues Floor Lieshout, YOURS executive director.

 

More than giving a voice to young people, the Foundation believes that they should be leaders in this process, so our volunteers have already carried the message of Vida Urgente around the world. In 2017, for example, Thiago Gruner, Julia Dullius and Ana Carolina Fensterseifer attended the 8th University Scholars Leadership Symposium (USLS) in Thailand, a UN event that brought together over 1 thousand young people to discuss important global humanitarian issues related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), preparing future leaders in their communities.

 

“In addition to having contact with a very different culture, I met very engaged and inspiring people. The Foundation has given me a unique opportunity, for which I will be forever grateful. Besides spreading the message of valuing life in traffic, I was able to learn about projects that started small, but today they make a difference in the lives of many people, just as Vida Urgente does”, says Ana Carolina, medical student and Vida Urgente volunteer.

 

If you are reading this text and wondering how to be part of building a better world, pay attention to this message that Floor has sent especially for us:

“Dear Brazilian young people. Road safety is probably not a topic that is on the top of your mind. Road safety might even sound boring to you. And the 18-year-old version of me would agree with you. Until this all changed when I heard the terrible statistics and I found out that road traffic injuries are the #1 killer of young people. I learnt that we can do something about this, that road safety is no accident. Young people do not have to die or get injured. It made me angry that nobody was doing anything about it. That people were accepting that this is the price we have to pay for our mobility. This is simply unacceptable. And we need you to tell the world. You can help, by joining Vida Urgente, talk to your peers and advocate for better policies. Join us and help save lives today!”