Our Driver Awareness Programme (RYDA) has had another year of growth with 6781 students attending the RYDA Programme across the country. The Road Safety Education (RSE) team who facilitate the programme, worked with 85 schools and ran 55 programme days from Kaitaia down to Invercargill presenting for the first time in some new areas including Balclutha, Central Otago, Ashburton and Dannevirke.
Our Driver Awareness Programme (RYDA) has had another year of growth with 6781 students attending the RYDA Programme across the country. The Road Safety Education (RSE) team who facilitate the programme, worked with 85 schools and ran 55 programme days from Kaitaia down to Invercargill presenting for the first time in some new areas including Balclutha, Central Otago, Ashburton and Dannevirke.
New areas being targeted in this new year include Taupo, Tauranga and Gisborne and are vital as they are Country Road oriented in areas that see a disproportionate road toll statistic, however it is heartening in the face of a worsening road toll to see schools and communities pulling together to prioritise RYDA.
The programme undertook an extensive review in the first half of this year and the feedback on this new format has been very positive both from the teachers and the students.
In our district 9920 we processed 1489 students running 10 programme days across 13 schools and despite losing our Auckland Programme coordinator this was an increase on last year and so a pleasing result.
The schools were:
Central Auckland.
Baradene College, Kings College, Glendowie College, St Cuthbert’s College, Southern Cross Campus and Tamaki College.
Six programme days and 916 students.
South/East
Elim Christian College, AGC Strathallan, James Cook High School, Papakura High School, Onewhero Area School and Alfriston College
Seven programme days and 573 students.
It was great to welcome Southern Cross Campus along with the support of Rotary Auckland Harbourside and we are looking forward to having Pukekohe High School back in September supported by Rotary Pukekohe.
Programmes for the balance of 2018 Calendar Year are:
19/9/18 Pukekohe High School at Pukekohe Park
9/11/18 Baradene College at Alexandra Park
16/11/18 AGC Strathallan at Karaka Sports Centre
27/11/18 Kings College at Alexandra Park
Peter Wilcock and George Wilson have both been on the RYDA District Committee for many years and are deeply committed to our Youth and Road Safety Education and would encourage anyone who is half interested in reducing the carnage that is occurring involving young people, to take the time to attend even a session or two of this programme to get an appreciation of this great programme.
The website is also great to check out rse.org.nz/ryda or take a look on Facebook /RYDAroadsafety
Maria Lovelock is our National Programme Manager and has worked extremely hard to cope with quite a few hurdles this year however in the midst of all that turmoil a new approach involving the Education System has been developed linking Teachers to the RYDA Programme through a very useful booklet which sets out an ongoing education profile on the six sessions of the course. Well done Maria as this has been the missing link.
Don’t hesitate to talk to either Peter or George about RYDA.
