AIP Foundation supports the enforcement of Decree 34, trains parents
18 May 2010 – AIP Foundation is launching a new intervention that targets parents’ education and awareness on child helmet use. Today and tomorrow, a mobile education unit with trained staff will visit twenty primary schools during lunch and after-school pick up times in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to distribute leaflets, speak with parents, and answer any questions about Decree 34 and child helmet use.
These activities are in anticipation of 20 May 2010, the date that Decree 34 will come into effect. Starting on Thursday, adults carrying children over the age of six without a helmet on a motorbike will be fined 100,000 – 200,000 VND. In support of Decree 34, AIP Foundation plans to identify areas throughout the country with low child helmet use and will use this focused intervention to educate parents.
Additionally, AIP Foundation staff has circulated a letter to the parents of all Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City primary schools involved in AIP Foundation programs requesting that parents pledge to put a helmet on their children every day before they get on a motorbike.
“Parents vaccinate their children against tuberculosis, polio and measles. Putting a helmet on your child reduces their chance of serious brain injury by 79 percent and of death by 42 percent. Helmets are like a vaccine, they protect your child’s health,” states Mirjam Sidik, Executive Director of AIP Foundation.
To download the leaflet and find out more information, please visit www.asiainjury.org.
For the Editors:
AIP Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the epidemic levels of road traffic crash casualties in the developing world. Founded in Vietnam in 1999, AIP Foundation implements school-based and nationwide public awareness education programs focused on road safety in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. AIP Foundation owns and operates Protec Helmets, the world’s first ‘helmet business for social progress’, a commercial operation wherein all profits are put back into its community programs.
In November 2009, AIP Foundation, in collaboration with the FIA Foundation and the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility, launched the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative (GHVI). With the mission of putting a helmet on every head in the Decade of Action for Road Safety, GHVI implements AIP Foundation programs in developing countries worldwide. As one of the focus countries, AIP Foundation will work in Vietnam implementing programs and interventions under the Vietnam Helmet Vaccine Initiative – the country-level implementing body for GHVI.