Vietnam - October 4, 2013

From October 3-4, 2013, the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation’s Vietnam National Child Helmet Campaign “Children also need a helmet” organized a road safety training course for policy-makers at the Golden Lotus Hotel in Ha Noi.

The course was attended by officials who are directly involved in the organization and implementation of road safety public awareness, enforcement, and school-based educational activities from offices including the Traffic Safety Committee, Departments of Education and Training, and Traffic Police from six provinces.

The aim of the course was to expand participants’ knowledge of issues surrounding road safety and helmet use and generate concrete action plans to promote child helmet wearing. Trainings covered current helmet legislation and challenges to implementation, technical standards and requirements of helmets along with brain injury data, development of child helmet campaigns, and effective behavior change methodologies. The workshop was supported by the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), with financial assistance from the Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Trainers included international and national road safety experts Ray Shuey, Founder of Strategic Safety, Bui Huynh Long, former Chief Secretariat of the National Traffic Safety Committee, and Dr. Nguyễn Đức Chính of Việt Đức Hospital. The workshop was also attended by Ryan Duly, Road Safety Advocacy Coordinator of GRSP and Greig Craft, AIP Foundation President.

The two-day workshop resulted in the development of six provincial action plans that outlined a combined campaign with police enforcement and communications activities to promote child helmet wearing. The course materials will be made available online through the campaign’s website. Follow-up will be conducted via an online forum hosted on the “Children also need a helmet” website childhelmet.org.