Sophie Paris secures the skulls of school kids

The first phase of the initiative has seen the police officers in Ho Chi Minh City vigilantly carrying out routine traffic checks. In the event they find children to be without a helmet or wearing a sub-standard helmet the police officers have issued the family with a Sophie Paris voucher which entitles them to high quality child helmet.

“As a father myself I fully understand the eternal need that parents have to protect their children. That is why everyone at Sophie Paris Vietnam is behind the helmet campaign one hundred per cent,” said Nick Jonsson, Sophie Paris Vietnam’s general director.

“The police and the supporting organisations are doing a great job in educating the public and we are proud to be able to offer five hundred children a helmet that may otherwise not have been accessible to them,” Nick added.

The three year programme, “Children also need a helmet”, is a partnership between the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC), Road and Rail Traffic Police Department and the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) with support from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation (AIP). It aims to increase the number of children wearing helmets by raising the awareness of the families to the protection that helmets offer and also by showing the importance of good quality helmets.

“Enhanced enforcement is one of the most effective measures to increase helmet wearing in accordance with the law. To achieve maximum impact, we will be implementing enforcement near schools particularly during the times when parents are dropping off or picking up their children” said Nguyen Ngoc Tuong from the Ho Chi Minh City Traffic Safety Committee.

The percentage of children wearing helmets in the second city is just under 32 per cent compared to the adult figure of 78 per cent. Even children who do wear helmets are not always as protected as parents think, as substandard helmets do not offer the same amount of protection.

“Parents are often unaware that helmets can dramatically decrease the likelihood that their child will be injured or killed in the event of a crash,” said AIP Foundation executive director Mirjam Sidik. “We want to create messages that confront parents with the tragic reality of what they risk by not insisting that their child wear a helmet.”

The five hundred helmets, immediately recognisable by their bright magenta coloring, were specially produced by Sophie Paris Vietnam following the strict national standards for quality and safety and have passed the Quality Assurance and Testing Centre III’s examination.