Lifetime volunteer protects school children from traffic danger

AMMAN — “When I saw a kid get run over by a car, I knew I had to do something about it,” said Mousa Zweiri, Jordan’s noted volunteer in protecting school children from the dangers of traffic. 

The 62-year-old, who has been unemployed for the past five years, has been helping school children cross the streets safely for almost 30 years.

“I started volunteering after I witnessed a kid get run over by a car in front of Samir Al Rifai School. Then I realised there was a need to ensure the safety of our children,” Zweiri explained, adding “there are loopholes in our rules, laws and even in our behaviours”.

He noted that some parents send their kids to school without “knowing anything” about them or their whereabouts.

“I started at Samir Al Rifai School where I used to go in the morning, and in the afternoon as soon as the kids finished school,” he said.

“Once the former Amman mayor saw me volunteering in the rain, and gave me his word that the municipality would build a pedestrian bridge, and he did,” he recalled.

After that, Zweiri spent around six years volunteering in three different schools before spending 14 years at another school in Al Hashmi Al Shamali.

“I worked hard to get a certificate from the Ministry of Education in order to form teams of guides from each school I’ve worked with, and then train them in guiding children on busy streets,” he said.

The teams he formed have been distributed into 50 different schools in Amman and Zarqa, which he keeps monitoring regularly. Since then, none of these schools have witnessed any accident involving minors, he stated.

Abu Rafaat, as he is known, said he is now volunteering at Al Batraa (Petra) School in Jabal Al Hussein., noting that he chooses the schools that are located on dangerous streets.

He said that no one wants to witness a painful accident, let alone involving a child.

“People’s behaviours are improving though. Now, we see most of them stop by themselves without me having to pull out my stop sign,” he noted.

“My advice to parents is to take care of their children, and be a good role model,” Zweiri noted.

He also suggested for schools to pay more attention to children safety, teaching them how to act safely on roads, and recommended for the location of the main school gates to be switched from high-traffic streets to safer side-roads.