By Lenah Bosibori
Kayole One Comprehensive Primary School in Kenya has benefited from a road safety initiative by the FIA Foundation and its local partners. The program, launched in collaboration with local partners, aims to reduce traffic accidents by providing essential safety measures for children walking to and from school in the busy area.
Speaking on Friday during the launch of the program dubbed, ‘Safe and Healthy Journeys to School’ Eng Isaac Gitoho Board chair of ASIRT Kenya said that the children from ages five are in danger of road fatalities as they walk alone to school as their parents go to look for work.
“Kayole One Comprehensive Primary School has a total number of 3,800 learners and the majority of them walk to school alone while their parents go to look for work, these children are on their own while crossing the road, imagine a six seven-year-old walking alone to school?” queried Eng Gitoho.
The event that cost Sh three million ($25,000) showcased partnerships between FIA Foundation, AA Kenya, Amend, and ASIRT Kenya to implement life-saving infrastructure improvements around Kayole One Primary School, including footpaths, zebra crossings, speed humps, and traffic signage.
Eng Gitoho added that safety on the road is always a challenge, He urged road designers and engineers to carry out a post implementation audit. “I would encourage KURA and KENHA and KERA to carry out post implementation audits to see if they got what they wanted in terms of safety level,” he noted.
Kenya has been a pioneer in traffic regulations for school transportation, amending the Traffic Act in 2016 to require school buses to be painted yellow for easy identification. This measure ensures that vehicles transporting children are easily distinguishable, alerting other road users to drive cautiously.
On his part, Eric Maina, representing Embakasi Central MP Hon. Benjamin Gathiru, highlighted how these improvements will safeguard young pedestrians, saying. “With these new measures, we believe that road accidents involving students will be a thing of the past,” said Maina.
He also added that the school was chosen because of the unique situation in the school that comprises 3,800 learners who walk alone daily to school. “We chose Dandora One Comprehensive Primary School because of the unique situation.
“Here, children go on their own to school, this school has 3800 children, they are are naive because they don’t know how to cross the road properly, last year there was a death of one student here, a death of a child going to school is one death too much,” said Maina,” he shared.
He further added that road safety is one of the things they want to address and scale up by bringing more donors both the national and local government so that they can ensure the safety of children.
According to a 2023 report by the World Health Organization, road crashes claim approximately 1.19 million lives worldwide each year, with children and young adults aged 5 to 29 being the most vulnerable. Tragically, two students from Kayole One Primary School were involved in road traffic accidents in the past two years, one of which resulted in a fatality.
Agy Krasnolucka, Programs Director at FIA Foundation, noted that Africa faces a biggest challenge with the highest number of fatalities that is amongst children who are the most vulnerable groups.
“We have seen this approach work across 10 countries and in 10 cities in Africa, we aim to see similar success here in Kenya,” she noted. “Road safety for children is achievable with the right investments and partnerships.”
She added that they want to make road fatalities a thing of the past by ensuring the safety of children and that of the surrounding community. “This is the school with a high number of pupils, we know that there are a number of fatalities in this area and we want to make sure that this is a thing of the past,” she added.
These different solutions will make children coming to school safe and going back home safe and every other member of the community will be safer. “These are very simple solutions and they are effectively cost effective.” She reiterates.
Timothy Keli director of Mobility AA Kenya said that by coming together with different stakeholders, the roads will be safe for the children. “We are all coming together to make our roads safe for our children, at AA Kenya we have a program that trains children from ages 3-17 years old on road safety, one of them being a sustainability program,” he noted.
Further he said that this is the first one that has been done here and many more are lined up and earmarked. “We have earmarked one in Juja that is waiting for the proper documentation of the road from the relevant authorities,” he noted.
Simon Kalolo, a country Director for AMEND Tanzania and AMEND Global emphasized that they work across Africa including Kenya to prevent road traffic injuries. “Statistically the age group between 5-29 years old are the most vulnerable road users. They are the ones mostly affected, killed and injured on our roads,” added Kalolo.
Through collaboration with various stakeholders, including national and local governments, the project has already implemented more than 400 meters of pedestrian walkways, allowing children and those with disability challenges to access safe paths on their journey to and from school.