When students from Beijing Dongjiao Minxiang Primary School go to school and back to home, they are crammed into a narrow Hutong (a type of narrow street or alley commonly associated with northern Chinese cities, especially Beijing) with electro mobiles, bicycles and crowds. Looking at the crowded Hutong, Du Mudi, one of the students came up with her own solution – a sidewalk dedicated for students. It draws a line that divides Hutong into student’s sidewalk and carriageway. This is one of the proposals in the "Children’s Opinion Matters" road safety and civilization forum, which has successfully launched offline with the joint efforts of schools, community, and local departments.
“Children’s Opinions Matter”: A Forum for Children
The "Children's Opinions Matter" road safety and civilization forum supported by MobileKids program held in 2021, children between the ages of six and twelve were encouraged to submit solutions and suggestions for traffic problems. Covering the aspects of traffic behaviour, traffic advertising, infrastructure, and transport, 1,600 proposals have been received from 60 schools all over China. Twelve primary students’ representatives presented their proposals in the online forum and have direct dialogue with experts. The online forum was streamed both on Mercedes-Benz official social platform and CSR partners’ social platform, such as Weibo, WeChat, which gained more than 200.000 views. These proposals provided thoughts in children’s angel for traffic and transport authorities to build a more sustainable public transport system in the future.
MobileKids is not the only organisation committed to improving road safety. With the SAFE ROADS initiative, Mercedes-Benz has been committed to increasing public awareness of road safety globally since 2015. "At the time, we were intensively analysing the number of road accident victims within the Group's own accident research department and looking at what the situation was worldwide," says Jochen Feese, head of accident research. "We realised that India had more accidents involving children than other countries. That's why we wanted to start there." SAFE ROADS was born. In the same year, Jochen Feese and his colleagues travelled through eight Indian cities with their own programme aimed at improving road safety. In addition to presentations on the topics of traffic and vehicle safety, this also included an exhibition with several experience exhibits.
SAFE ROADS was then further developed so that the format can be repeated every two years with a different focus at a different location. While the focus in 2017 was on children's road safety, in 2019 it was on the future of safety and in 2022 on data usage. "In addition to the multi-faceted programme, it is very important to us that we bring together many stakeholders involved in road safety with SAFE ROADS", says Feese. This also includes suppliers of safety and security systems, government and authority representatives, urban planners, and non-government organisations.
In addition to India, the Group's own SAFE ROADS initiative is now also active in China “to sensitise all road users to the challenges of road traffic”.
Active learning in classroom
In the past ten years, the Mercedes-Benz initiated a wide variety of methods to raise awareness among students, teachers and families on road safety. In March 2021, for example, MobileKids hosted a live-streaming road safety course for students. The "Be aware of and avoid danger" event chalked up 29.4 million views.
The course set up by MobileKids has been delivered to 210 urban primary schools since 2017, enabling 260.000 pupils to participate to date. The rich variety of materials are continuously developed to keep them up-to-date in terms of education value and content. Scientists, schools, traffic police, volunteers and parents are involved. In 2018, “All-round Safety” concept were innovatively raised to provide safety education to children and parents by simulating safety issues that may arise in various daily scenarios such as at school, on the road and in public places. The Star Fund Road Safety Reading Series, guided by “All-round Safety” concept, were introduced to provide systematic road safety knowledge. An improved road safety learning package helped primary school pupils in Beijing to gain insights into road safety in a vivid way.
More than 1200 primary school teachers have received further training in road safety education since 2018. Training courses took place in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu.
Mercedes-Benz dealers involved: Social responsibility
Mercedes-Benz dealers in China are also involved in the MobileKids road safety concept. At the beginning of 2015, a pilot project was launched with selected dealerships. In 2019, all Mercedes-Benz authority dealerships were upgraded into the “Star Fund CSR Community Base”, and MobileKids is one of the programs which was covered by their CSR activities.
Together with these “Star Fund CSR Community Bases”, the reach of the road safety programme was further expanded. Integrated the major safety issues including road safety into the theme activity of "a course for safety" to educate children to improve their safety awareness in all aspects. Up to now, more than 240 “A Course for Safety” were held by “Star Fund CSR Community Base”.
In school projects, MobileKids in China developed a road safety curriculum and a "Road safety experience course" for Chinese primary school pupils. It was introduced in 210 primary schools across China and benefits over 260.000 pupils.
The "Be aware of and avoid danger" online course, which attracted 29.4 million views, offered children and parents a variety of innovative educational modes for safety scenarios.
Teacher training sessions were conducted to improve the safety education skills of school teachers and volunteers. Over 1200 people were benefited from the training.
The road safety and civilization forum "Children's Opinions Matter" encouraged children to share their solutions and ideas for road safety and provided the authorities with ideas and inspiration for building a more sustainable public transport system in the future. More than 1600 proposals were received and one of the student’s proposal were successfully launched offline.
The Star Fund CSR Community Base is committed to helping Chinese children learn more about road safety and develop good traffic habits through nationwide dealerships.
More than 240 safety courses were held in the "Star Fund CSR Community Base" through dealerships.