Local Action Winners meet the Local Government of Indonesia
15 March 2023, Indonesia - Our 2022 Local Actions winners Vania Emmanuela and Nikita Luthfi met with the Local Governments of Bandung City to share the outcomes of their project around improving road safety, particularly for young motorcycle drivers. Titis Efrindu Bawono and Agita Pasaribu, also leaders of their respective Local Actions projects for 2023, were also in attendance to discuss potential collaboration between youth leaders and the local government.
Also present during the meeting was our Youth Leadership Board Member Estiara Ellizar who shared some insights from her Global Road Safety Leadership Courses (GRSLC) Fellowship Program organized by the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) and Johns Hopkins University.
Representatives of the Department of Transportation (DoT) of West Java and Bandung City, the Traffic Corps of Bandung, the Department of Public Works Bandung City, the Department of Education Bandung City, the Principal of Junior High School 22 Bandung, CARS Indonesia, a motorcyclist taxi driver, and some participating students were among the attendees of the sharing session.
The event was opened by Mr. Ferlian Hady (Head of the Transport and Infrastructure Section, DoT Bandung City) and Mrs. Santi Prianti (Head of Transport Management, DoT Bandung City). It was started by introducing the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety and the Local Actions projects as the masterpiece of the Coalition by Estiara and also introducing CARS Indonesia by Dr. Indah Amelia, Board of Expert CARS Indonesia.
Estiara began the presentation with her efforts to transform the Junior High School 22 Bandung school zone from a 2-star road to a 5-star road. The project helped empower youth voices through the school safety zones assessment. It allowed the students to provide recommendations for safer infrastructures that will minimize the risk. Estiara’s project helped raise awareness among youth; it highlight the importance of advocacy efforts to the government and the necessity of infrastructure change in creating safe school zones.
The improvement in the Junior High School 22 Bandung school zone was built through mutual collaboration with 3M Indonesia. It has directly impacted over 800 people at Junior High School 22 Bandung City and more than thousands of people who live nearby.
Following Estiara’s intervention, Vania talked about the Bandung Klik Helmas project - one of the Local Actions projects from the previous year. A member of Vania’s team, Zaky Alif Pradian, talked about how traffic crashes are the leading cause of death in the productive age, with head injuries as the main cause. In 2021, nearly 75% of road users in Bandung were motorcyclists. Because of this, the Bandung Klik Helm project focused on reducing the number of fatalities caused by head injuries in motorcycle crashes in Bandung by 2022 by empowering youth and motorcyclists to be more engaged and well-educated on helmet use behavior issues.
Bandung Klik Helm has four main activities; on-site training, a ground campaign, an online campaign, and creating evidence-based reports as advocacy tools. The project has directly impacted over 60 volunteers and indirectly affected over 14,000 road users.
The team proposed a document of aspiration for the continuity of the project and to invite stakeholders to contribute to the solution.
Nikita's project, Bike to School, was presented soon after. Data showed that between 2015-2019, underage traffic crashes in Indonesia involved over 139,000 young people. She talked about how the project worked to address underage driving in the region by educating them on the dangers of underage driving. They were taught how to cycle safely through creative competitions and joint cycling activities. The team also referred to the aspiration document that presents the demands of youth on road safety issues. With the help of DoT Bandung, Bike to School has impacted more than 200 young people.
The Department of Transportation of Bandung City expressed its support for the Bike to School program implemented by CARS Indonesia by committing to reactivate the Safe Route to School (RASS) installation.
RASS is a traffic engineering management program to ensures the safety and security of students by providing safe routes to school. This program is a collaboration between Bandung City’s Department of Education, Department of Transportation, Department of Water Resources and Highways Office, and other parties around the school.
Since the launch of the Local Actions initiative in 2021, at least one Indonesian youth representative has been named a winner and has received funding and support to implement road safety projects in Surakarta, Bandung, Nganjuk, and Jakarta.
The Bandung City Government appreciated the efforts made by the youth leaders through the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety; they talked about how the youth projects were in line with their own initiatives which have yet to be realized due to organizational changes.
Pledge cards were also presented so that participants could affirm their road safety commitments. Most of the government stakeholders are committed to collaborating and supporting programs for road safety. Stakeholders made an appeal to road users to obey the traffic rules, avoid distracted driving, use helmets while riding motorcycles, and ensure the health of drivers and vehicles before driving.
Some of the pledges from the session include;
“Road safety is our responsibility. I commit to obey the traffic rules” – Rasyid Priatna, Department of Transport, West Java Province
“We are ready to collaborate with all stakeholders in contributing to road safety” – Dr. Indah Amelia, Board of Expert CARS Indonesia
“I totally support the road safety program, one of the goals is to reduce the road traffic fatalities and we will collaborate with relevant stakeholders to support the program” – M. Andri S, Traffic Police Corps. Bandung City