ROAD SAFETY: JOURNALISTS CAN HELP SAVE LIVES BY RAISING PUBLIC AWARENESS - WHO REPRESENTATIVE

By Noraizura Ahmad

HANOI, Nov 5 (Bernama) -- Journalists have the power to help save lives on the road through their stories, said Dr Angela Pratt, the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in Vietnam, as she called on media professionals to play a stronger role in promoting road safety.

“We always say that journalists can save more lives because your stories can shape the way politicians and policymakers think about big issues like road safety.

“And the way politicians think about those issues influences the solutions that get put in place,” she said at the closing of a three-day Road Safety Reporting Workshop for Asian Journalists here today.

The workshop, jointly organised by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) and WHO under the Global Road Safety Agenda 2030, brought together 16 journalists from Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia and Vietnam to strengthen the media’s role in driving public awareness about road safety.

Angela hopes that participants will apply the lessons learned upon their return home.

“When you go back to your own countries, take the lessons from these last few days and help us translate them into stories that inspire change,” she said.

As part of the workshop, participants visited the Van Phuc Primary School in Ha Dong, Hanoi, where children learn about road safety through interactive drawings and classroom activities designed to make walking to school safer and more enjoyable.

They also visited the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) broadcasting centre, which monitors traffic conditions across Hanoi through closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage.

The system enables reporters to provide real-time traffic updates while allowing residents to share local traffic information for radio broadcasts.

-- BERNAMA