“You Are A Hero” cards made Riders smile across city
PUNE, India – Oct 02, 2018 – City based Global Shapers Pune celebrated Pedestrian day at more than seven major junctions across Pune. Out of seven junctions, three road junctions were led by girls. Taking inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi march, Shapers wanted to encourage Pedestrians in Pune to join a movement of Road safety and awareness. Since 2014, every 2nd Oct Global Shapers Pune encourage people to follow traffic rules for their own safety & pledge to push authorities to give better road infrastructure. Tejaswi Satpute, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) said “This is good initiative which youths are involved in and I extend my support. I suggest that along with thanking those wearing helmet, you can also spread awareness about zebra crossing”.
This year’s Pedestrian day theme was “You Are Hero”. Heroes save life and inspire others. We said ‘You are Hero’ to those wearing helmet as they save their own life by wearing helmet & Inspire those who don’t wear helmet. “Penalizing those breaking traffic rules is critical. However, appreciating those who are following traffic rules is equally important. It goes long way to encourage them to continue believing in system and inspire young generation.” said Devendra Jani, Alumni Shaper at Global Shapers Pune who headed this project.
We appreciated 471 citizens who were wearing helmet and seat belt by giving them handwritten thank you note and Thank you cards. Citizens were delighted and smiled back when kids were doing this task. Through different junctions they managed to reach more than 3950 citizens with the help of 84 volunteers. 76 pledged to use footpaths instead of walking on roads and Citizens whole heartily appreciated volunteers and requested to do more of such campaigns to make Pune’s roads safer for Pedestrians.
Different NGOs teams joined hands to led at different junctions. After Facebook invite was created, it got good response and decided to take place in seven major road junctions across the city. At Kharadi junction, Kids from Labor camp gave ‘Thank You’ notes to people who wore helmets, and motivated them to keep this good habit alive. Pedestrian day was just a trigger and it turned to be a moment when they were joined by young change makers from Tara foundation at Anand Nagar, Renovatio joined at Amanora, LetsRISE at Nal Stop junction, Faza Foundation Pune team at Kharadi Junction, EcoAd at City Pride Junction, Swachh Kalyani citizens group at Kalyani nagar Junction and Do Save Foundation at Hinjewadi.
“Every year we come up with new themes. Last year under the theme ‘Uparwala dekh raha hai’ Shapers educated 4900 citizens about 300 cameras installed across Pune junctions which are tracking traffic defaulters and e-challan could be issued to those.” Said Ajit Kumar, Global Shapers Pune. Pune Traffic Police Department was actively involved at all the junctions and supported the campaign without any delay.
