Queen Rania attends interactive play designed to raise traffic awareness among schoolchildren

(Jordan Times - Amman) Her Majesty Queen Rania on Tuesday joined a group of schoolchildren attending a performance of “Stop,” part of an educational campaign designed to raise traffic awareness among schoolchildren.

The play is one of the activities implemented by the National Traffic Awareness Campaign, which was launched by Queen Rania, in cooperation with the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and the private sector.

Directed by Performing Arts Centre (PAC) Director General Lina Attel and produced by PAC, the National Theatre in Education and Troupe, the one-hour interactive play seeks to teach children traffic rules and regulations in order for them to become more traffic conscious.

The plot revolves around Nadia, a high school student, who is deeply involved in preparing a research paper about traffic for a national competition. Nadia’s dreams of making the streets safer for children are disrupted by a tragic incident, which drives her to question people’s commitments and understanding.

Jordan Television filmed the play in February 2006, and will start airing it after the live performances end.

The play targets children from grades one through nine, and is currently performed at public schools in different governorates.

The script was developed around the traffic campaign and the target audiences are passengers and the pedestrians (since schoolchildren can be both passengers and pedestrians).

After the performance, the Queen met with children who won prizes in a drawing competition focusing on the main themes of the nationwide campaign, which seeks to contribute to reducing the growing number of traffic accidents in the country.

“Imagine life without them” was the message transmitted at the launch of the campaign in April last year, under the banner “Towards a Safer Jordan on the Roads.”

Last year’s statistics released by the Jordan Traffic Institute indicated that road accidents in the country claim a child’s life every 37 hours, while a citizen is killed every 11 hours. Around 30 per cent of the accident victims are children, while 40 per cent are pedestrians.

The figures also showed that a traffic accident occurs every 7.5 minutes, while financial losses amount to around JD553,000 daily, or JD200 million annually.

The campaign includes print, TV, radio and outdoor billboard messages addressing all segments of the society.

The messages seek to deepen understanding of traffic signs, remind road users of the alarming traffic accident figures and their causes.

Jordan Times, Wednesday, May 17, 2006