04/12/2023 News

Indian students appointed VIA Ambassadors for safe mobility in 2024

VIA is a road safety awareness and educational program rolled out in 44 countries on the initiative of the TotalEnergies Foundation program and the Michelin Foundation. In this context, the International VIA finals rallied young people around a theme: “Together, let's improve the safety of young pedestrians on their way to school”. Thanks to the five young girls of the C.S.I Ewart Global School, India won the 2023 edition.

This year, 240,000 students from 29 countries took part in the VIA international finals. In each school, a group of students identified a risk that they and their classmates face every day on their way to school: absence of signage, of crosswalks, of sidewalks, dangerous crossroads or bends, very busy roads, and so on. Their mission was to create a poster that presented this risk and more particularly, to come up with tangible solutions and recommendations to improve road safety.

After an initial selection at national level, the young people from Lebanon, Argentina, Tanzania, India, Nigeria and Cameroon won the final round at regional level. On November 22, 2023, the jury – composed of Stefania Giannini, Jean Todt, Farida Lambay, Orondaam Otto, Patrick Weil, Susanna Zammataro, Forrest Patterson and Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier – appointed the VIA Ambassadors of India to become the VIA Ambassadors for safe mobility in 2024. It will be up to them to make their voices heard, for themselves and for hundreds of thousands of young people involved in the project worldwide.

The students of the C.S.I Ewart Global School in Chennai will be invited to Paris in the spring of 2024. The objective of this trip is to support them in their new role.

To find out more about the 2023 VIA International finals, click here

580,000

young people informed in 1,600 schools and 44 countries, as part of the VIA program

Jury members of the international final

Stefania Giannini, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education,
Farida Lambay - Founder of the Indian NGO Pratham for the protection of children in vulnerable situations, which received the Indira Gandhi Award for Peace, Disarmament and Development,
Orondaam Otto - Social entrepreneur and founder of the Nigerian NGO Slum2School Africa, benefiting children living in slums,
Forrest Patterson - Sponsorship Director and Managing Director of the Michelin Foundation,
Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier - General Manager of TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation,
Jean Todt, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Road Safety,
Susanna Zammataro - Managing Director International Road Federation,
Patrick Weil - French historian specializing in immigration and citizenship issues. He is the founder of the NGO Libraries without Borders.