Miri school wins road safety grant, spurs local council action

KUCHING (Jan 12): Team Safety Squad from SJKC Chung Hua Tudan in Miri was crowned cham­pion of the VIA Safe Mobil­ity National Final, recog­nised for their excep­tional school­wide engage­ment and impact­ful advocacy work.

The team secured a 5,000-euro grant from TotalEn­er­gies to imple­ment their road safety ini­ti­at­ives.

“Their vic­tory marked a proud moment for Malay­sia at the VIA Safe Mobility Regional International Finals, where they com­peted along­side cham­pion teams from India, Iraq and Romania, rep­res­ent­ing a broader field of 24 par­ti­cip­at­ing coun­tries across the region,” said TotalEn­er­gies in a state­ment.

“The school is situ­ated next to the high-speed Jalan Kuala Baram Bypass – one of Miri’s top five acci­dent-prone roads – mak­ing road safety a daily urgency for its large primary-school com­munity. Anchor­ing their project in these local chal­lenges, the 10-mem­ber team, guided by teach­ers, con­duc­ted an obser­va­tional audit of the school’s drop-off area and ped­es­trian zones dur­ing peak hours.

“Their invest­ig­a­tion revealed crit­ical risks, includ­ing low hel­met-safety aware­ness among younger pupils and the use of old or dam­aged hel­mets,” it added.

A key recom­mend­a­tion was the estab­lish­ment of a proper cross­walk dir­ectly in front of the school.

Trans­lat­ing find­ings into action, the stu­dents sub­mit­ted an offi­cial request to the Miri City Coun­cil (MCC) for a des­ig­nated zebra cross­ing. They also launched a com­pre­hens­ive safety cam­paign under the theme ‘See + Go = Safe. Hel­met On, Wor­ries Gone’.

This cam­paign included a ‘VIA Safe Mobil­ity Camp’ for over 1,200 pupils, draw­ing com­pet­i­tions, teacher assem­blies, a Com­munity Road Safety Car­ni­val, a ‘Walk for Safe Mobil­ity’ at Taman Bulatan Miri, and peer-engage­ment ses­sions reach­ing an addi­tional 1,000 high school stu­dents.

Their advocacy yiel­ded a tan­gible res­ult, in which the MCC had ini­ti­ated tech­nical assess­ments for the pro­posed cross­walk in front of the school.

“Engin­eers have already com­pleted ini­tial site meas­ure­ments in response to the stu­dents’ request,” said TotalEn­er­gies.

TotalEn­er­gies, together with Arus Academy, car­ries out the VIA Safe Mobil­ity ini­ti­at­ive as a global edu­ca­tional pro­gramme aimed at improv­ing mobil­ity con­di­tions for youth through strengthened stu­dent learn­ing and lead­er­ship.