NOW WE WALK TO SCHOOL (A.N.C.A.S children’s walking association safe environment)

Ziele/Ideen

The main challenges are to be found in the voluntary cooperation of the pupils‘ parents, who often cite a lack of safety on the roads, express self-protection of their children and do not all collaborate in accompanying the group of pupils on their way to school. The increase in traffic has led to a lack of road safety in cities, with unsupportive attitudes and fear on the part of families in order to facilitate the autonomy of their children when they are on the move. We have to recover the city for pedestrians and convince them that walking to school is safer and healthier.Give continuity and follow-up to the schools where the project has been running for years and add new schools to the project.Changing school environments requires political will and often requires architectural projects that depend on municipal authorities and are often very slow to implement.The challenge is to introduce the design of safe school routes into the mobility plans of all municipalities.

Kurzbeschreibung

Is an educational and citizen participation project, which seeks changes in the model of coexistence in school environments, turning pedestrians and cyclists into protagonists of the city. It is developed with the participation of the municipal government, the school community, the neighbourhood and shopkeepers. Workshops are given, working on social values in favour of coexistence and promoting, with the Mapfre Foundation, a letter and/or drawing competition among young schoolchildren, who pass on the messages they have learnt to adults. Practical cycling skills activities are carried out and, turning the pupils into mobility detectives, we go out into the street to observe and identify with a critical eye the problems of the school environment, barriers, infrastructures, etc. We apply mobility habits surveys to families to draw up a map of the pupils‘ routes, which allow us to identify the different routes and start promoting the safe school route. The meeting points are signposted and we manage to encourage citizen participation, improve coexistence and promote journeys to school, with benefits for road safety and the environment.

Resultate

This project has been developed since 2018 in 6 Autonomous Communities and has involved a total of 100,000 students from more than 600 schools who have attended almost 4,000 workshops and we have seen that participation has increased every year. A project that allows us to transcend the entire educational community with the interaction of all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and the city and that complies with the strategic lines proposed in terms of mobility, health, safety and sustainability of cities 30. The success of the project is guaranteed by its ease of implementation, its economy and continuity and the fact that it has been designed and developed from a perspective of citizen participation involving the school community which, as a positive effect, will allow us to gradually implement the experience in all schools in terms of safety and sustainability, acting locally with global consequences, therefore, they are actions of change and social transformation.

Partner

Fundación MAPFRE: cooperative funding

Dirección General de Tráfico, Ministry of the Inte: Cooperative funding

A Coruña City Council Councillor for mobility: Cooperative funding

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