Zimpapers Logo

Maria Chidume and Ryan Vhutata Cool Lifestyle Writers
All is set for today’s road safety awareness campaign in the streets of Harare streets hosted by the Harare Junior City Council in partnership with Traffic Safety Council, aimed at educating drivers, conductors and pedestrians on the importance of adhering to road and traffic regulations as a means to curb accidents.

Road safety, teenage behaviour and female health have become areas of major concern that are directly or indirectly affecting each all children in Zimbabwe.

The event is running under the theme,: Do not discriminate but educate in a bid to promote the youths of Harare in arts, anti-abuse campaigns, bringing wealth and Gender to equilibrium and raising awareness on disability , HIV and AIDS and poverty.

The Harare City council have noted with concern that there is need to educate the pedestrian, driver, conductor and passengers after paying several visits to different ranks in the city with the help of the traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe.

They do so by intensifying awareness campaigns on road safety as part of the programme to reduce carnage on the roads especially during school days and public holidays.

This came after the child councillors noted with concern that on an average of five people perish in road accidents every day.

The campaign will start at Copa Cabana rank with distribution of flyers, displaying of banners, educating the public and marching as a way of protesting and raising awareness on the road safety.

Behaviour does not end when one gets an Advanced Level certificate but rather brings some of the toughest discipline challenges.

Teenage behaviour has drastically changed not for the better but for the worse.

As teens become more independent, they still lack emotional maturity they need to make informed decisions and thus the combination of autonomy and immaturity is leading to risky teenage behaviours like bullying and alcohol abuse among many other immoral acts practiced by teenagers in Zimbabwe.

“Teenage behaviour has become a major concern and we intend to get rid of the generation barrier between children and their parents by allowing bonding time during a braai at Hillside Park later today,” said one of the organisers.

The Harare City Junior Council has carried out surveys in schools on bullying and found out that boys’ schools top the list and so in coming up with the solution for bullying we decided to allocate suggestion boxes in schools and a website.

These two solutions will act as platforms to allow victims of bullying to report cases of bullying.

“We have conducted a drug and alcohol abuse campaign at the Direct Contact School.

For the past six months during our survey we have noted with concern that female health has generally gone down for several reasons, one of them being lack of sufficient funds to provide proper and adequate sanitary wear.

“Sanitary pads are important and necessary for girls and women to have though they are rarely discussed because of sensitivity of the subject.

“The fact that there are a lot of girls that cannot afford the price of basic hygiene no matter how affordably priced they can be.

“Strange and shocking as they are, stories of using cloths or tissues for a large number of girls are commonplace in our country and a large number of girls worldwide drop out of schools because they do not have pads.

“This means that sanitary pads are not just a crucial matter of personal hygiene but they also touch human dignity and this is why we are inviting you to come and support our fundraising braai as we advocate against bullying and other immoral teenage behaviour,” explained one junior councillor.