Community Jameel is launching a new campaign – “Your Belt, Your Safety” – to coincide with Unified Gulf Traffic Week, the Gulf-wide initiative to improve safety on the region’s roads. The campaign, which will launch at an event on March 12 in collaboration with Jeddah Traffic Department, is part of Abdul Latif Jameel’s Road Safety Initiative.

As part of the 34th Gulf Traffic Week, the Road Safety Initiative will promote the ‘Your Belt, Your Safety’ campaign, encouraging Saudi Arabian citizens and residents to always use vehicles seatbelts. In addition, a road safety exhibition will be held in Red Sea Mall featuring characters from ‘Open Sesame’, along with games and activities that encourage road safety for children.

The Road Safety Initiative was launched in 2014 by Abdul Latif Jameel in partnership with Toyota Motor Corporation Japan, later coming under the auspices of Community Jameel.

Hassan Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, president of Abdul Latif Jameel’s Traffic Safety Committee, stressed the importance of educating young people in road safety, saying: “Traffic awareness campaigns are effective in motivating Saudi road users, supporting government efforts in raising public safety and enabling the concerned institutions to collaborate across different fields.

“Community Jameel’s Road Safety initiative pays particular attention to equipping children, as future road users, with the necessary skills and knowledge to keep them safe. We strongly believe in promoting sustainable road safety awareness as a continuation of the education process. Introducing programmes in curricular and extracurricular capacities consolidates our message and promotes improved attitudes to safety at an early age, which we believe can help to protect people in their future lives.”

Dr. Osama Al Kurdi, Director of the Road Safety Initiative, commented: “Through targeted activities and events, RTSI plays a key role in instituting strategic partnerships with public and private agencies involved in managing road traffic safety. Through these strategic partnerships, road traffic safety campaigns can deliver on their aspirations and play a significant role in affecting road users’ attitudes and behaviour.

Community Jameel aims to help communities transform themselves and prevent problems at the source. RTSI’s programme plays a vital role, targeting key areas that support and enable effective management for road traffic safety systems.

These include engineering, enforcement, emergency response, education and training. The areas of focus are consistent with international best practice, as well as World Health Organisation and United Nations recommendations that specifically target the reduction of deaths from road traffic collisions.

Based on these recommendations, the RTSI’s remit is to create strategic partnerships with RTS stakeholders from public and private sectors to enable change in road user’s behaviour and the way road traffic safety is managed holistically.

Abdul Latif Jameel Centre for Continuing Education, Abdul Latif Jameel Hospital, and a number of other Abdul Latif Jameel’s companies and departments will be participating in awareness activities as part of Gulf Traffic Week. They aim to highlight issues related to vehicle safety, health and economic impacts resulting from road collisions. A seatbelt simulator will demonstrate the impact of collisions at low speed and encourage seatbelt usage by drivers and riders for all journeys no matter the distance or duration.

Abdul Latif Jameel is also using its sponsorship of Saudi Arabia’s domestic football league to promote road traffic safety at football games nationwide. Collaborating with Jeddah Traffic Department, the 20th round of the Abdul Latif Jameel League has been named with the slogan ‘Buckle Up Round’ to raise awareness of the importance of wearing seatbelts. Road traffic safety activities will be held before and after the match between Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal.

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