A CADVA conference will raise awareness among public authorities and policy-makers on the necessity of adequate road safety regulations.
Cameroon like other countries of the world loses many lives to road accidents. In 2008, FCFA 100 billion was lost to road accidents. Some FCFA 200 billion was projected to be lost in 2015 with some 7,000 people estimated to be wounded and disabled. About 12 people are victims of road accidents in a day, averaging 4,700 victims nationwide every year since 2010. The World Bank information was revealed during a recent seminar by the safety coalition, Coaliroute, in Douala. A considerable portion of those dying or injured in road traffic accidents are children.
With limited infrastructures, children work, play or live on the road, and this exposure, along with other risk factors inherent to childhood, makes them particularly vulnerable in traffic. Some become accident victims as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and vehicle passengers, because the road environment is rarely developed with consideration for their needs. It is within this premise that the Cameroon Association for the Defence of Victims of Accident, CADVA, will hold a one-day road injury prevention conference at the Government Bilingual Grammar School Molyko-Buea in the South West Region May 21, to raise awareness among public and para-public authorities on the necessity of adequate road safety policies and regulations that will help reduce children road deaths and injuries among children in the country.
Placed under the theme “Children and the Road,” the CADVA event will hold through school road safety clubs initiatives. The aim is to better inform and educate children on road risks as well as raise public authorities and policy-makers awareness on the necessity of adequate road safety regulations that protect children in Cameroon in particular and the Central African sub-region in general. There will be a demonstration of a play on safe kids’ lives on the road by students and an interactive workshop on child road injury prevention strategies.
