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Opinions of Thursday, 23 March 2006

Columnist: Bolus, Mercy Adede

The Capture of an effective Easter Road Safety Campaign.

The planning of a National Road Safety Campaign starts from the second week of January.

? How many relevant organisations are needed for such a campaign? This is a strategic ministerial question!

? Is the Department of Road and Transport aiming at an integrated effort from various organisations to give a synergy effect?

? List the names of these relevant organisations i.e. MTTU, The Police, Station masters, Ministry of Health, i.e. the Public Health Department, Social Services, State Transport Managers, Ministry of Education, Ministry of the Environment, Paramount Chiefs every Region, Church leaders i.e. Bishops, selected number from the business community and property developers and some ordinary people i.e. pedestrians and some market women. Please feel free to add on to the list.

? Have an open discussion to brainstorm ideas for the Campaign and use those ideas and incorporate these in the planning stage and set a date within two weeks with their consent for another detailed meeting.

? Send minutes from discussion to everyone on the panel a week later.

? At this next meeting, discuss of the plan and allow the group to digest of the minutes in order to agree and signed to it. By this time the department deciding with the group and listening more to their suggestions.

? Draw on the group strength and the facilitator would need to start delegating the various such as marketing strategy of the campaign on a Gantt chart with time scales towards the actual day for the Road Safety campaign and set another date for a February meeting.

? At the February meeting the facilitator would need to bring the Gantt chart to see the progress of people responsibilities.

? Depending when Easter falls, have a meeting three weeks before Easter to ensure the implementation of the Road Safety Plan hence re -checking on the Gantt chart to see whether progress is up to schedule. Also set a date three weeks after Easter for an evaluation of the whole campaign.

? Implement the Road safety campaign two weeks before Easter to get the message across in the most effective way

? The Road and Transport Department would need to be monitoring progress through the various groups on their list particularly the Police and MTTU. Assuming that the new role of the MTTU and the Police own Road Safety measures.

? The department would also need to be reviewing their strategy

? Send letters to remind meeting in third week after Easter.

? Third week after Easter evaluation the Road Safety Campaign with the Road Safety statistics, Ministry of Health and a general survey from the public. This is the time to reward those on the panel for all their hard work. A little party would go a long way. At this meeting engage the group about their own evaluation.

? Department of Road and Transport need to capture these safety intelligence and evaluation for their next planning of Xmas Road Safety Campaign and the following year?s Easter campaign.

? As you can all see through my bullet points Safety Campaign should have been already on now if these approaches are being used?

? It is too late to do anything now



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