YAB member, Omnia El Omrani, raised the importance of road safety in adolescent health
Last Thursday, January 28, Youth Advisory Board Member, Omnia el Omrani, joined the Global Health Practitioner Conference (GHPC) to talk about adolescent health.
Omnia joined a session called From Rhetoric to Action: Making Adolescent Well-being a Universal Priority during COVID-19 and Beyond.
GHPC is CORE Group’s flagship annual conference as a way to improve and expand community health practices for underserved populations especially women, children, and adolescents. The conference gathered implementers, academics, governments, donors, UN, private sectors, and other community health advocates to convene in a content-rich meeting that features knowledge sharing and skills-building sessions.
In the session, Omnia joined leaders like Zoleka Mandela from Child Health Initiative, David Imago-Jacome from International Youth Health Organization (YHO), Valentina Baltag from the World Health Organization, Chiamaka Nwachukwu from the African Union Office of the Youth Envoy, Sarah C. Thomsen from UNICEF, Anjali Singla from Movement for Global Mental Health, Satvika Chalasani from UNFPA, Sally Beadle from UNESCO, Desmond Nji from Advocating for Change for Adolescents Project, Chris Armstrong from Plan International Canada, and Danielle Mullings from Tech 4 Health. The session was facilitated by Mercy Juma, BBC Africa Moderator.
Invited youth leaders and experts talked about adolescent health in different aspects- from nutrition to mental health, each speaker raised the importance of addressing the well-being of adolescents everywhere.
In her speech, Valentine Baltag from WHO pointed out that a responsive health care system is not enough – young people need actions that go beyond the policies. Real action must be taken to ensure the health of adolescents.
In her speech, Omnia talked about how road safety needs to be among the priorities when discussing adolescent health. She discussed how adolescents were the most affected by road crashes, pointing out that road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for young people aged 15-29 years old with youth from LMICs being the most vulnerable.
Omnia emphasized how young people from all over the world demand for safe and sustainable transport systems that put their needs at the forefront. As an example, she discussed the recent global awareness campaign launched by the Coalition.
“This year, at the end of 2020, we conducted a global campaign that demanded a mandatory lockdown for young people for our safety and well-being, to protect us from the risk factors that are leading to our death”
