MOVING SAFE TO HASSELT UNIVERSITY

BY LINDA NEKESA MASIBO FROM BELGIUM

#MovingSafe2Hasselt University is an online road safety education and awareness campaign at Hasselt University in Belgium for international students from outside the European Union.

The project aims to increase traffic knowledge, skills, and awareness and to promote positive attitudes towards road safety among 80% of the international students at Hasselt University. The project team is composed of international students coming from Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, Albania, Luxemburg, India and Nigeria, all studying Transportation Sciences at Hasselt University.

Its goal is to raise awareness of safe cycling and pedestrian behaviour in Belgium, with 80% of the (currently 713) international student population from outside the European Union at Hasselt University by the end of 2022.

ABOUT THE PROJECT LEAD

Linda, from Kenya, is a masters student at Hasselt University in Belgium studying transportation sciences specializing in road safety in the Global South. She is doing her masters under a full scholarship from VLIR-UOS.

She has a bachelors degree in civil engineering and is currently a road safety intern at the Africa region office of the World Resources Institute. She also manages a social network and community of transport professionals called the Transportation Sciences Network created by the Transportation Research Institute (IMOB) at Hasselt University.

PROJECT UPDATES

Road safety course in development to understand travel patterns in Belgium

Linda and her team from Hasselt University developed and conducted needs assessment surveys to better understand the travel patterns and common safety-related issues experienced by international students in Belgium. Through the local actions project, Hasselt University plans to improve mobility within and around the campus. After creating a plan, stakeholders were contacted to solidify partnerships. From the left, the team is made up of Eridona Selita, me, Amit Pothina, Alvine Ntumngia, and Anne-Sophie Che Mambo.

Road safety workshops for international students

Local Actions winner, Linda Nekesa, and her team from Hasselt University have completed a road safety workshop for international students held in person at the university. The workshop gave the students an idea about the basics of road safety and assessed their general understanding of road safety and sustainable mobility and happened simultaneously with orientation week to get the greatest number of audiences.

ABOUT THE LEAD ORGANISATION

The Transportation Research Institute (IMOB) of Hasselt University combines research and education activities and works on sustainable solutions for problems within domains of transportation, road safety, behaviour, road design, tourism and autonomy. Researchers and lecturers from IMOB are supporting the project by offering supervision and technical advice.