Road safety focus of this year’s Queen Alia Competition for Social Responsibility

AMMAN – With traffic accidents continuing to rise in Jordan, claiming hundreds of lives and costing the country around $3 billion each year, this year’s Queen Alia Competition for Social Responsibility will focus on road safety. 

“Your life’s journey is more important” is the theme of the 2017 award, organised annually by the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development.

During 2015, there were 608 deaths in 111,057 road accidents, according to official figures.   

“Choosing the issue of road safety for pedestrians and motorists alike is a bid to increase Jordanians’ awareness, especially students in schools and universities, with the concept of traffic safety and the significance of abiding by the rules to reduce human and economic losses incurred by road accidents,” said Atef Odeibat, head of the competition’s higher committee, on Sunday. 

At a press conference to announce the launch of the competition, Odeibat conveyed a message from HRH Princess Basma, head of the competition’s steering committee, for all supporters and partners of the award. 

Initiated in 1995 to shed light on prominent issues such as water, the environment and health, the competition seeks to raise awareness on ways to address these issues by distributing questionnaires to education departments across the Kingdom.

Six “key awareness messages” will be delivered on road safety, while 1,500 posters will be handed out to young people, civil society organisations and universities across Jordan.

“Each poster will display advice on ways to optimise road safety. Social media websites and newspapers will also be utilised to spread awareness,” said Farid Khatib, president of the award’s science committee, who noted that the competition’s publications include 650,000 pamphlets on traffic safety and 10,000 questionnaires. 

While the Queen Alia competition has a new theme each year, the constant feature of the award is the way the proceeds are distributed, with the money going to support national projects. 

Hani Faraj, head of the award’s financial committee , noted that JD55,000 of this year’s proceeds will go to support Al Rajaa School for rehabilitating children with hearing impairments, JD30,000 to Muath Centre for Special Education and JD15,000 to  mobile physical therapy units for people with cerebral palsy and the Education Ministry’s special education resources.

“In order to encourage participants to take part in the competition and inculcate principles of social responsibility, there will be around 670 awards ranging between JD50-JD2,000, in addition to the in-kind prizes, worth JD22,000 and donated by state agencies and philanthropists,’’ he highlighted.