The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims – Tanzania

Information for WDR Organisers

On 15^th November 2009, Tanzania will host a public event to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. The event is being organised and managed by an Organising Committee made up of the consumer council of the transport regulatory authority – SUMATRA, and four NGOs – Chakua, Uwaba, CTS and Amend.org (TZ).

Like so many other rapidly-urbanising low-income countries, Tanzania has a high incidence of road deaths and injuries. Bus passengers and pedestrians account for over 60% of the victims.

The event to remember those who have died will take place on the morning of Sunday 15^th November and will be held at Mnazi Mmoja Ground – a major public space in the centre of Dar es Salaam. Special guests will include the Ministers of Health, Home Affairs and Infrastructure Development as well as the Commander of the Traffic Police.

Religious leaders representing Muslim, Christian and Hindu faiths will lead prayers to remember those who have died, and candles will be lit. Family members of those who have died, and victims who have been injured and disabled will provide testimonies of their experiences.

Attendees will include 300 pupils from six primary and secondary schools, specifically invited because of recent road deaths of children from these schools. The event will offer friends and family of those who died the opportunity to remember them, and to draw public awareness to the scale of the problem.

To ensure country-wide attention, a significant media campaign will involve newspaper, radio and television coverage before, during and after the event.

About the Local Organisers

SUMATRA Consumer Consultative Council

The Consumer Consultative Council of Tanzania’s Surface and Maritime Transport Regulatory Authority represents the interests of transport users, to safeguard their rights. It liaises between private and commercial transport users, transport operators and government to promote the users’ interests.

For more information, contact Executive Secretary Oscar Kikoyo on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , +255 22 2127410 or +255 787 642442.

---

Chakua

Chama Cha Kutetea (CHAKUA) is an NGO advocating for the rights of passengers on all surface and maritime transport. It lobbies for road safety, affordable fares and compensation in the case of legal infringements. It provides road safety education to members of the public.

For more information, contact Wilson Mashaka on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or +255 719 316 007.

---

Uwaba

Umma wa Wapanda Baiskeli Dar es Salaam (Uwaba) is an NGO made up entirely of members who cycle in Dar es Salaam as their everyday means of transport. Members include ordinary cyclists, disabled arm-cyclists and three-wheeled guta-cyclists. UWABA works to promote cycling as a sustainable means of urban transport, works to improve road safety for cyclists through lobbying the Government for better cycle infrastructure and for better law enforcement, and runs cycle safety education courses for school students and other cyclists. UWABA also has meetings every Saturday morning in Manzese Sisi kwa Sisi where cyclists can contribute ideas and work together to improve our environment.

For more information, see the Uwaba website www.uwaba.or.tz, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or contact Chairperson Fredrick 'Mejah' Mbuya (+255 713 652642) or Secretary Elaine Baker-Guni (+255 715 568512).

---

CTS

The Campaign for Travellers’ Safety Trust Fund (CTS) is a non-governmental, non-political and not-for-profit organisation, which was established in response to the Government’s call for different stakeholders to collaborate with the Government in reducing or eradicating road crashes in Tanzania and to sensitize passengers’ on their rights. CTS’s mission is to save lives and reduce road crashes, and to empower communities with the skills and knowledge relating to their rights and responsibilities as travellers to enable them to contribute to crash-reduction.

CTS’s programmes include:

• Road safety education to community members, particularly youth and school children

• Advocacy and sensitization on passengers’ rights

For more information, contact the Executive Director on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

---

Amend.org (TZ)

Amend.org (TZ) is a not-for-profit organisation which focuses on the neglected epidemic of child road injury in the developing world by creating, implementing and evaluating injury-prevention interventions. Our flagship ‘Be Seen, Be Safe’ programme (‘Onekana, Uwe Salama’ in Swahili) includes:

• Primary school road safety instruction,

• Public relations and media lobbying,

• Data collection and analysis, and programme evaluation, and

• Social marketing of reflector-enhanced book bags.

For more information, contact Amend’s Africa Director Tom Bishop on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or +255 715 461 322.

PRESS RELEASE

Dear Journalist,

On behalf of our stakeholders, we would like to take this opportunity to inform members of the public that on 15th November 2009, from 8am, we will mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims at Mnazi Mmoja grounds in Dar es Salaam.

The World Remembrance day of Road Crash victims find its origin in the UN resolution A/60/5 (2005) of the 26^th October 2005, which adopted the World Day “as the appropriate acknowledgement for victims of road traffic crashes and their families” and called for its recognition by Member States and the International Community.

The World Day of Remembrance is held across the globe to give recognition to victims of road crashes and the plight of their loved ones who must cope with the emotional and practical consequences of these events.

The day provides an opportunity to draw the public’s attention to road crashes, their consequences and costs, and the measures which can be taken to prevent them. The day also provides an opportunity to remind governments and society of their responsibility to make roads safer.

The Need for Remembrance and for Safer Roads

Road crashes are a leading cause of death globally for children and young people aged between 10 to 24 years, and the third leading cause of death globally among people aged between 30 to 44 years. Every six seconds someone is killed or injured on the world’s roads, including drivers, passengers, motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians.

Globally, each year over 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes – a greater number of deaths than those caused by malaria. Millions more people are left seriously injured and disabled.

260,000 children are killed on the world’s roads each year, and by 2015 road crashes are predicted by the World Health Organization to be the leading cause of death and disability for children.

Over 90% of the world’s road deaths occur in low and middle income countries, including in Tanzania.

Between January and June this year 1,460 people were killed on our roads in Tanzania, with the total for 2009 likely to be close to 3,000. For each person who is killed or injured there is an effect on their family – a father no longer able to work to feed his children, or a schoolchild no longer able to get the education that will give them chances in life.

Add all of these effects together, and Tanzania as a whole suffers. In 2006, it is estimated that road crashes cost Tanzania 3.4% of Gross Domestic Product.

The tragic thing about road traffic deaths is that they are so easily avoidable. Over three-quarters of all deaths are caused by human error, meaning that the driver, the pedestrian, the cyclist or another road user made a fatal error and ended up either killing themselves, or others. Through education, engineering and enforcement of traffic laws, needless deaths can be avoided in the future.

The families of those who have died, and the victims left injured and disabled, remember their experiences only too well. The act of public remembrance is a demonstration to victims of recognition. It shows them that their humanity is valued, that their loss is our loss and that their suffering is shared, if only through recognizing the tragedy and error of its occurrence.

The World Day of Remembrance in Tanzania

In Tanzania events for this year’s World Day of Remembrance are being arranged by an Organizing Committee made up of SUMATRA Consumer Consultative Council, Umma wa Wapanda Baisikeli Dar es Salaam (UWABA), Chama Cha Kutetea Abiria (Chakua), Campaign for Travellers’ Safety (CTS) and Amend.org (TZ).

Special guests who are expected to attend the event to mark the day are the Ministers of Home Affairs, Infrastructure Development and Health. Victims will provide testimonies explaining their experiences and religious leaders will offer prayers and lead candle lighting to remember the dead. Hundreds of school children – some of them close friends of recent victims – will attend. A senior member of staff at the National Institute of Transport will present a paper on ways to make our roads safer places for all users.

Less than one week after the World Day of Remembrance, Tanzania delegation is expected to attend the first ever Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Moscow. At this conference, ministers from all over the world will have the opportunity to sign up to a Decade of Action for Road Safety, with the objective of reducing the forecast level of deaths for 2020 by 50%.

If the Decade of Action is approved, the Tanzanian Government will be expected to commit to increasing the capacity of our road safety sector, improving infrastructure design, influencing road user behaviour, and improving post-crash care.

OUR CALL TO THE PUBLIC:

We would like to take this opportunity to invite the general public to attend at MNAZI MMOJA GROUNDS from 8am on Sunday 15^th November 2009 where the events to commemorate this year’s World Day of Remembrance will be held.

People can come to remember someone they have lost in a road crash, to understand what they can do to improve the safety of our roads, and to call for Tanzania’s delegation to Moscow to sign up to the Decade of Action.

We would like to take this opportunity to urge all stakeholders to play an active role in creating safer roads for all Tanzanians. Specifically, increasing the safety of our roads can be achieved through educating all road users – both drivers and others – on safe behaviour, engineering ‘forgiving roads’ and using a ‘safe systems approach’ which minimizes the effects of human errors, and enforcing the traffic laws that are designed to prevent dangerous drivers and dangerous vehicles from putting other people at risk.

And finally, we would like to remind all Tanzanians that reducing the number of people killed on our roads is not only the responsibility of the Traffic Police and the Government. It is up to all of us to use our roads in a manner that does not endanger our lives, or the lives of others.

Issued by: Organising Committee, World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims 2009, Tanzania