Target:

Schoolchildren of two primary schools in Gabes, Tunisia.

Aim:

Improve safety infrastructure and increase awareness of road safety amongst the inhabitants of the delegations of Ghannouch and Bouchemma.

Where:

In front of the Ghannouch Primary School, Gabes.
In front of Bouchemma Primary School, Gabes.

When:

15th and 16th March 2018.

What:

This road safety open day event was organised to coincide with the National Day of Traditional Dress (16th March) jointly by the HSSE and CSR depts of the Nawara project, contractors (Myriad and Bouchamaoui Industries) in collaboration with the southern district of the ANSR and the Gabes Institute of Arts and Crafts (ISAM).

The main focus of the two days was the painting of four zebra crossings in front of the two schools by the local art college in a traditional style to fit with the traditional dress theme of the day.

Myriad designed a hi-vis vest which was produced in Tunis and distributed to the children and adults taking part in the event. We also designed a flyer that was printed in Tunis and distributed on the day.

Other activities included a drawing workshop, vehicle checking activities, a clown, training sessions, and medical testing of drivers by Regional Health Officers.

Who:

Attendees – Total number of participants (data from ANSR) was 2746 people:

• 40 students from the ISAM.
• 1560 Primary school age students.
• 800 Parents of school children.
• 111 teachers and educators.
• 140 members of the ANSR.
• 95 Local officials.
• National Guard representative.
• 5 policemen and firemen.
• School directors.
• Head of HSSE OMV Operations Daniel Pluck.
• HSSE management OMV Nizar Frikha, Houssem Doghmani and team.
• HSSE director from Bouchamaoui Industries.
• Governor of Gabes.

Feedback:

On the positive side the event was extremely well attended and there was lots of very positive feedback from within OMV and from local people. One of the OMV team described it as the best event he has been involved in so far because of the way everyone worked together towards a similar goal benefiting the whole community. The addition of the art college made a significant improvement to the usual road safety events so anything we could do with them again would add to this positive relationship.

On the negative side the ANSR said they would provide paint suitable for painting crossings but only the white was of this quality, the coloured was standard acrylic paint. They also said they would make sure the delegation cleaned the roads beforehand but this didn’t look like it had been done.

The HSSE team decided to produce the hi-vis vests locally to avoid paying import costs and produce locally. The fabrication was not of very high quality (poor finishing) but the the design by Myriad was widely appreciated as were the flyers. The ANSR were not happy that their logo was not included on the vests but OMV agreed to make the association some more vests at a later date in recognition of their efforts.

Photographs would have been better if we had had a professional photographer despite this suggestion being made it was not taken up.