HO CHI MINH City, Vietnam - July 21, 2017

On 22 June and 21 July, 2017, 29 local stakeholders convened in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, respectively, to discuss and reflect on the progress made through the Helmets for Families program over the previous school year. AIP Foundation presented program achievements and facilitated discussions on the challenges, lessons learned, methods for improving, and plans for moving forward after the program ends. Representatives from the six program schools, local authorities, and others joined us for the meeting.

This year, Helmets for Families continued its work towards increasing road safety literacy and safe behaviors amongst Vietnamese families by distributing more than 4,700 high quality helmets to students and teachers, and exchanging nearly 900 subsidized helmets to parents at select schools. The program expanded its road safety education to four new schools in the Hoc Mon District of Ho Chi Minh City, a suburban and agricultural zone where up to 90% of the participating students’ parents are manual laborers. Since 2013, Abbott has supported the program in Vietnam, which has raised helmet-wearing rates at some program schools from as low as 9.5% to more than 80%.