Physical Health Vietnam Project #7585

Make Child Helmets the Norm in Vietnam

by AIP Foundation

Project Report | Jun 7, 2012
Thanks for your support

By Aaron Abelson | Development Coordinator

Handing out flyers to parents in Ho Chi Minh City

Thank you for donating to the project, "Make Child Helmets the Norm in Vietnam." We will soon be deactivating this project because of corporate and foundation support we have received for the public awareness campaign promoting child helmet us in Vietnam. We wanted to give you one more update on the impact of your donation before removing the project from Global Giving.

AIP Foundation launched our three-year public awareness campaign in 2011, and with your help it has progressed spectacularly. At the end of 2011, tens of thousands of flyers were handed out at public areas dispeling myths that keep many parents from putting helmets on their children. Workshops were held to engage parents and numerous other stakeholders from the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. Soon, AIP Foundation and the World Health Organization will team up with local authorities on stronger enforcement of the requirement for all children over 6 years of age to wear a helmet.

With the sight of helmet-less children still all too common, AIP Foundation will soon begin airing its newly produced television commercial entitled "When I Grow Up." A national communications campaign will accompany the TV spot, with billboards, social media, talk shows, and public events serving as other outlets for changing behavior.

With strong corporation and foundation support for the campaign, we decided to close down this Global Giving project and focus our online fundraising efforts on our other Global Giving project: "Give a Vietnamese Child a Helmet; Save a Life." The money donated towards that project goes towards donating helmets to children and educating them about safe road behavior.

We are grateful for your commitment to the important cause of road safety in Vietnam and encourage you to follow the progress of our campaign and other programs at www.asiainjury.org. Also, please share the link to our Global Giving project with your friends and family. On June 13, Global Giving will be holdnig a bonus day and each donation to our project will be matched at 40%. Donate then and help children become safer on the roads!

Children at a family event to raise awareness

Permalink

Apr 9, 2012
Postcard: Project Site Visit

By Jacqueline Lee | GlobalGiving InTheField Representative

Protec helmets - improving quality and standard

Jacqueline Lee is an InTheField Traveler with GlobalGiving who is visiting our partners’ projects throughout Southeast Asia. Her “Postcard” from the visit in Vietnam:

“Every year over 12,00 people die on roads and 30,00 are seriously injured..most of these cases could have been prevented by simply wearing a helmet…Wear a helmet. There are no excuses.” - 2007 Public Service Announcement by Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, Vietnam Helmet Wearing Coalition, and National Traffic Safety Committee.

This was a public service announcement by Asia Injury Prevention Foundation in 2007 to spread awareness about the life-saving impact of wearing helmets. Instead of 12,000, now 11,000 people die per year on roads. When I arrived in Vietnam, I was shocked by the chaos of street traffic and the number of children I saw riding motorbikes with their parents and not wearing helmets. On Friday, Apri 6, I was able to spend the morning with Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, meet staff, and see their programs in action.

Not only was I able to visit a school benefitting from AIP Foundation's "Click On Safety", "Helmets For Kids", and "Safe Routes to School" programs, I was able to sit with Executive Director, Mirjam, and Development Coordinator, Aaron, to learn about all of the projects, public awareness campaigns, successes, and challenges of AIP Foundation. AIP Foundation was able to accelerate approval of the Vietnam Helmet Law and because of this, helmet wearing has increased 10% to 98% by adults. AIP Foundation now works with the mass media to create awareness campaigns about how wearing a helmet can save lives.

At the end of the visit, I was able to learn more about Protec, a non-profit arm of AIP Foundation that is increasing quality and standard in the helmet industry in Vietnam. Protec helmets are the "world's first "tropical" motorcycle helmet designed...low cost, lightweight...appropriate for warm climates" via AIP brochure. Protec is a social business that reinvests all profits back into AIP Foundation to help create self-sustainability as well as hire disabled workers to provide opportunities for the disadvantaged.

It is unfathomable to understand the importance of helmet-wearing unless one has been to Vietnam and driven through traffic on a motorbike. Motorbikes are the main means of transportation for people in Vietnam. The law currently only requires adults and children over 6 to wear helmets, but many kids older than 6 still do not wear helmets and the law is not effectively enforced. This was similar to my experience in Cambodia, where I saw a majority of not only children but also adults not wearing helmets. I now own my very own helmet for the remainder of my time in Southeast Asia with GlobalGiving - and it's a Protec helmet.

To learn more about my experience with AIP Foundation - click here.

Permalink

Mar 12, 2012
Donate again on March 14; see your donation go further!

By Aaron Abelson | Development Coordinator

1 2 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.