Global Youth Coalition Member Feature: Nicole Perrone

1. Where are you connected right now? Tell us about the work you're doing.
 I’m a first-year engineering student from Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the moment I’m part of a youth group called “Tomá la Voz” (speak up) which is fostered by the municipality of San Isidro. We take on social and cultural projects to enhance the city’s community. We not only touch on road safety-related activities, but also work on advocating for sustainability, people with disabilities, and other important topics.

Nowadays, I’m working on a project called “Walls Talk”. The main objective is to promote road safety education in schools and embellish Buenos Aires’s streets with amazing art with a related message. Thanks to “Tomá la Voz” I was able to realize my idea of inviting public national figures such as my aunt, Pilot X, and the daughter of San Isidros’ mayor to converse about road safety with students. During the visits, we asked the students to sketch a mural. After looking through their ideas, we decided to portray one of the submissions where one of the teens wrote: “stars should stay on the sky” as our first masterpiece. Here in my city, when someone is struck and killed by a car, we paint a big star on the spot where they were impacted, therefore, that phrase states that deaths because of this nature should stop.
 

2. How did you first get involved in road safety and how long have you been working in the road safety and sustainable mobility field?
Ever since I was born I’ve heard about road safety in my family because my 14-year-old cousin was killed in a hit-and-run crash. My aunt, Vivian Perrone, founded an NGO called “Madres del Dolor” (mothers of pain) with a group of mothers who have also lost their children as a product of blatant injustice brought on by road crashes. They turned the grief into action. She was able to change the RS law and I’m more than proud to have witnessed her journey throughout. In some way or another, I’ve been trying to follow in her footsteps so that no family has to suffer the heartbreaking reality of having an empty seat at the dinner table.

In high school, I would constantly pester the headmistress to include road safety-related workshops or conversations in the discussion because, even though it is imposed by national law, this theme’s appearance is feeble in schools. Moreover, for my final thesis, I decided to do a ted talk in front of all of my peers where I talked about why road incidents are the main cause of death amongst the youth and tried to raise awareness on the importance of Vision Zero. With that said, I have been advocating for road safety practically all my life but I started to devote more time to it in high school.

3. What is the road safety and sustainable mobility situation like in your area?
Here in Buenos Aires, road safety still has a long way to go. The rates of cell phone use while driving have increased alarmingly. The national law of road safety education is not as imposed as it should be and a lot of citizens feel entitled to drink and drive. However, people have started to gain awareness of the air pollution that vehicles may cause. Therefore, I’ve been able to see how individuals have begun to frequent public transportation and have been asking for more bike lanes around the city.

4. Why do you think it's important to include young people in local and global road safety efforts?
In my opinion, when trying to tackle any problem, to find its solution we have to be open to as many opinions or ideas as possible. Additionally, the ones who are being killed because of the lack of road safety are the young boys and girls from around the globe. As they are negatively impacted the most, they should have a say in the situation and be allowed to share their opinions. Their statements may be more accurate than someone who has power but is not confronted by this issue daily.

5. Why did you join the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety?
I joined the coalition to broaden my knowledge on road safety, to inspire myself by sharing my ongoing projects with people from all around the world, and grow by getting their feedback. I also wanted to take advantage of the capacity development courses offered by the Coalition.

6. What are your comments on the Coalition? Its activities? Its opportunities?
Being part of this awesome coalition is so much fun! To be honest, I was not quite sure about what I was getting into at first, but it surprised me. The people I met at the virtual events are super kind, sweet, and willing to give you a hand when you ask for help. Also, every single event is very dynamic, informative, and eye-opening.

7. Any messages for people who have not yet joined the Coalition?
The first thing that comes to my mind is: what are you waiting for?! It may look intimidating at first, but I promise that joining the coalition will not only expand your worldview on road safety but will also enhance your set of skills to be a better advocator and, overall, make you a better and more understanding person.