PH International

Partnership between Civics Club and Tbilisi City Hall for Safer Traffic

Georgia | Momavlis Taoba - Civic Education Program | 1 Dec 2015


Success
Poor pedestrian road facility near Tbilisi Public School #186 had long caused risk for students and other citizens crossing the street near the school. Pedestrian crossing was hard to see as the narkings were wiped clean. Students, parents and school personnel had difficulties when crossing the street to get to the school building.

This problem came to the attention of the “Delta” Civics Club, founded at School #186 in November 2014, in the framework of USAID funded “Future Generation” (MT) project, implemented by PH International and supported by Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia. Since the day of its founding, Civics Club member students carried out different initiatives for their school and community. They advocate for the healthy lifestyle, for the need of environmental protection and human rights education.

Overview
To address the road safety problem in front of the school, civics club member students prepared a project “Safe Road for Pedestrians” and received a small grant funding from MT. The project aimed to increase public awareness about road safety. As part of the project, Civics Club members approached Tbilisi City Hall’s Transportion Office with a letter requesting to renew pedestrian crossings near their school. Shortly, on November 8, 2015, the Transportion Office responded with an action and pedestrian crossings were renewed not only near the school area, but also in all other places in the Didi Digomi municipality, where the crosswalks were poorly marked.

“We are happy that our advocacy campaign ended successfully and that the lives and rights of Didi Digomi community members are now protected,” said Irakli Managadze, student leader of “Delta” Civics Club from Tbilisi public school # 186.