Pioneering new youth-led road safety model to be piloted in Samoa by ADB Youth for Asia

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A screencap of the Youth for Asia presentation

At a recent Knowledge Sharing Event entitled Improving Road Safety in Mongolia and Samoa, Youth Project Designer Swithun Rumble revealed a pioneering new MYE Road Safety Model to be piloted in Samoa.

The model challenges the perception of young people’s role in road crashes due to their risky behaviour and reliance on vulnerable modes of transport such as walking and cycling. Instead, it recommends leveraging young people’s inherent qualities, such as resilience, tech-savvy and peer influence, to make them a part of the solution.

As evidence, Swithun highlighted other successful youth-led initiatives including the Global Youth Coalition for Road Safety, YOURS (Youth for Road Safety), Solve and Drive Right. He also quoted the Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative Report 2020:

"Young people have a massive opportunity to improve road safety through active engagement in road safety, and stimulating positive change as beneficiaries, partners and leader in road safety across the Commonwealth."

The model incorporate three stages as follows:

  • Youth-Led Research
  • Youth-to-Youth Capacity Building
  • Youth-Led Schools Bases Road Safety Education (RSE) & Independent Youth-Led Safe Systems Projects


Swithun cited the effectiveness of using youth to educate children who look up to them. He also recommended adopting education best practices established by the UN as part of their World's Largest Lesson, which promotes use of the Sustainable Development Goals in learning so that children can contribute to a better future for all.

Samoa Pilot Project

The opportunity to pilot the MYE Road Safety Model in Samoa is timely as the island becomes increasingly motorized and therefore, risky. During stage one, young people will be mobilised to collect representative, qualitative data about road user knowledge, skills and attitudes as regards existing and proposed safety legislation and policies using the E-Survey of Road Users' Attitudes. Stage two will see youth leaders mobilized to design and conduct a peer-to-peer 6-week capacity building programme aimed at increasing youth understanding of the safe system approach, gender-responsive road safety and building project management skills.

During the final stages of the Samoa pilot, local youth will be engaged to design and run a road safety education (RSE) and awareness-raising activities in all schools along the Central Cross Island Road in the modality of a World's Largest lesson. They will also be incentivized and supported to design and implement their own independent road safety projects spanning the spectrum of safety system interventions, and integrating the core themes of gender and environmental sustainability.

The Samoa pilot is due to commence on Q3 2021 until Q1 2023, and will then likely be rolled out to other DMCs. We'll report back on the findings but in the meantime, if you'd like to know more, please email youthforasia [at] adb.org or follow them below:

https://www.facebook.com/YouthForAsia/
https://www.instagram.com/youthforasia
https://twitter.com/youthforasia
https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/youthforasia/
Youth for Asia Youtube Channel

Contact Person

Neal Moore
Asian Development Bank
nealatmooreslore[dot]com