This isn’t a post about the staggering amount of car accidents in South Africa, and the even more alarming number of children who get killed each year.

What this post is about, is a great pilot road safety project called Safe Schools, primarily funded with a donation from Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company. The first phase was launched in May, and aims to protect kids on the roads to and from school.

The Safe Schools project was also initiated as a key part of the campaigning carried out by Zoleka Mandela and her family, in memory of Zenani Mandela Jnr, killed in a road crash in 2010. The Zenani Mandela advocacy campaign for the Decade of Action for Road Safety aims to help build global support for road safety to protect children and vulnerable road users, and to increase international funding and support for road safety initiatives.

The ‘Safe Schools’ project has selected schools from low income settlements in the Western Cape, whose children face high risks of road traffic injury, as pilot sites for the first 12 month phase of the project. They will introduce safe road infrastructure and road safety education.