COLETI.VU launch road safety awareness campaigns in Brazil

As part of his local actions project, Bernardo Pietrobelli, is leading road safety awareness campaigns around Brazil. The team began by mapping our twenty-one public and private schools around Porto Alegre and gathering ten active volunteers from Fundação Thiago Gonzaga to talk about the project. A total of eight schools showed interest in participating in the project. 

After the schools and volunteers were finalized, the team organized five sessions with the schools where they welcomed four students each to join the project. From this, a youth council under COLETI.VI was established. The council is represented by twenty-two youth leaders. 

The council will be responsible for sharing road safety information among their peers and other networks. The council will also be tasked with launching the road safety awareness campaign on a larger level. 

Currently, the team has partnered with the Catholic University from the State of Rio Grande do Sul to publish an online paper titled “Urban Mobility, Pandemics, and Youth” The paper will assist the team in understanding how pandemics impact the mobility of young people through both public and private modes of transport. 

The Youth Council is also working to organize online workshops for capacity building and for sharing information that would lead to leaders understanding relevant data on road safety issues. The topics to be included in the sessions include; project management, advocacy, and audience engagement. The team also plans to bring attention to safe cycling through an immersive video played through 3D glasses.

Through their efforts, the COLETI.VU Youth Council has created an online event for the inauguration of the project. Invited were the State Governor of Porto Alegre, local administrative and urban mobility authorities, participating schools, and local media. The event will take place this October.