Give a Vietnamese child a helmet; save a life

Following its global launch, the Safe School Zones Guide is now being put into action. In May 2024, AIP Foundation, in collaboration with the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport and the Ho Chi Minh City Traffic Safety Committee, proudly inaugurated the first school zone modifications carried out at four project schools using the Safe School Zones Guide. Two years in the making, Vietnam’s Safe School Zones Guide (SSZ Guide) is a comprehensive technical blueprint for urban planners, engineers, and policymakers to address the issue of safe mobility around schools across the country.

The four project schools were identified as high-risk following a city-wide assessment under AI&Me, a program that incorporates youth participation to identify unsafe school commutes. The results showed that 57 schools in Ho Chi Minh City will require critical safety upgrades with a majority receiving 1-2 star ratings using the Star Rating for Schools methodology (with 1 being the lowest and least safe rating and 5 being the safest).

The modifications around the four project schools (Le Quy Don Secondary School, Tran Quang Khai High School, Phu Lam Primary School, and Mac Dinh Chi High School) represent the start of a series of life-saving actions to improve commuting safety for the millions of students, parents, teachers, and communities that travel to and from school daily. Building upon the project’s assessment results, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transportation will develop a plan to improve infrastructure for other school zones in the city.

In addition, this program aims to support the Ministry of Transport’s action plan to implement Directive No. 31/CT-TTg. This directive was officially released by the Prime Minister and calls for all relevant agencies to review and amend Vietnam’s current technical standards and regulations for school zones. Following the announcement, the Ministry of Transport issued Decision 64, instructing all 63 provinces in Vietnam to provide detailed reports on their local assessments and action plans for enhancing school zone safety within their respective jurisdictions.

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Small steps lead to big changes, and across Vietnam, safe school zones for every student are one step closer to becoming a reality thanks to the Safe School Zones Guide Vietnam (SSZ Guide). Two years in the making, this SSZ Guide is a reliable blueprint to address on a larger scale the safe mobility issue around schools across the country. January 2024 marked the first time that the SSZ Guide was officially handed over to the Ministry of Transport (MOT) of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Following the handover, the Guide would be more widely implemented in Vietnam, ensuring millions more children have access to safer journey to school

In Vietnam, over 17 million children are commuting between home and school 2-4 times per day. Many children share the road with speeding trucks, with no sidewalks to walk on going to school. Alarmingly, traffic speeds around schools frequently and significantly exceed internationally recommended school zones’ speed limits.

To safeguard the lives of young students on their journeys to school, AIP Foundation, in partnership with the FIA Foundation, developed the SSZ Guide. AIP Foundation and the Ministry of Transport held a signing ceremony to kick-start the program in Hanoi in October 2021. Both parties officially committed their roles and responsibilities for the national project. The SSZ Guide aimed to provide a policy and procedure framework for safe school zones to be constructed and implemented around the country.

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