By: Precious Miracle Kargbo
In ensuring the safety of all citizens using the road network in Sierra Leone, the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority through its Corporate Legal and External Media Relations Unit (CLEMR) has on Tuesday 24th October 2023 commenced outreach activity to Government Rokel Secondary school in Freetown.
The purpose of the school visitation, according to the Public Relations Manager, Ms. Patricia Sam is to give first-hand information to school going pupils in respect of road safety messages in country with a view of catching them when they are young and generally reducing road accidents / crashes among them in the country. The delegation and team responsible for this exercise included Mr. Abdul Karim Dumbuya, Public Relations manager Ms. Patricia Sam, Public Relations Assistant Mr. Hassan Nelson Barrie, Public Relations Assistant Umaru Kanu intern and Mr. Alfred Mansaray Senior Road Safety Corp.
Addressing school pupils, the Public Relations Manager, Mr. Abdul Karim Dumbuya explained that the Global Statistics has shown that every year 1.3Million people die across the world as a result of road accidents. He furthered that these people aged between ages 5-35 stating that is the very reason why the authority decided to sensitize pupils on road safety messages to reduce the risk in using the road.
Mr. Dumbuya maintains that he is of the firm belief that these children would pass on these very important messages to their friends and parents at home to reduce the risk of wrongly using the road among school going pupils as students in Sierra Leone are very smart and capable and that has shown from the external examination performances in the recent years up till date.
Also addressing children and their responsibility to ensure that road safety messages are being disseminated to their different homes and communities, Mr. Mansaray said that the vision of every child is to achieve his or her dream but nothing that he or she could only achieve that dream if they are healthy and alive.
He furthers that going and coming out of school is the best thing to do and admonished the children not play along the road and should be very watchful when crossing the roads especially being mindful of the Zebra Signs.
Whilst describing it as very critical in reducing road accident, Dumbuya said it is the role of the SLRSA to ensure that they educate and sensitize the public especially children on these Zebra signs and even the drivers and kekeh riders because most of them lack the know-how of these different signs which are being displayed in different roads in the country.
Mr. Mansaray concluded by warning the pupils to avoid using their phones when using the road both in and outside of the school environment because it poses a very grave danger to their lives.
“Always learn to look left, right and once more before making a cross on the road and to be very quick as sometimes machines can fail the owners so they can never be guaranteed” he initiated.
The outreach climaxed with Questions and Answers sessions which was championed by Miss Patricia Sam, entertaining a lot of sensible and matured questions from pupils by providing answers to each of them and with a final promise to continue the outreach to all of the schools in Freetown so that every student will have full knowledge on road safety signs and measures, thereby reducing the amounts of accidents and causalities in Sierra Leone’s capital city.
