As part of the latest stage of the Street Wise road safety program in Thailand, 1200 helmets will be donated to five primary schools where 0% of students currently wear helmets. More than 500 teachers, students, and parents from the schools, which are located in the Singkhanakon and Muang districts of Songkhla Province, attended the recent launch ceremony for Phase 2 of the road safety initiative. Chevron Thailand Exploration & Production, Ltd. and AIP Foundation launched the initiative in 2014.

Songpol Sawastom, the governor of Songkhla Province, gave the opening speech at the project launch ceremony. In addition to handing over the helmets to students, representatives from the schools signed an official Memorandum of Understanding to participate in the program. AIP Foundation also presented certificates to the “Master Trainers” who recently completed the road safety curriculum training. These trainers will be responsible for training fellow teachers and community members on helmet safety.

From 2014 to 2016, helmet-wearing rates at neighboring Street Wise program schools in Songkhla Province increased from 3% to 38%. Since the program’s launch, 4700 parents have attended workshops and 250 teachers from 10 target schools have been trained on the road safety curriculum. Thailand has the second-highest road crash fatality rate in the world. Street Wise provides school-based education and awareness tools to make the country’s roads safer.

View more photos from the event here.

Read the full press release here.