The VYBZING Forum is an annual youth event coordinated by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Ministries of Government, Development Institutions and Youth Organizations. The forum is hosted throughout the Caribbean and this year, CDB Youth have partnered with YOURS to deliver a Youth and Road Safety Workshop within the framework of VYBZING in St Lucia.

This week is all about the call for safe roads for pedestrian safety all around the world. The Long Short Walk has had massive participation from all around the world and we are happy to share our first set of photos from our Global Youth Network for Road Safety! They illustrate vibrancy and the enthusiasm of youth and you can see them here!

This week marks the 2nd United Nations Global Road Safety Week which calls for pedestrian safety all around the world. Requested by the UN General Assembly, the Week will draw attention to the urgent need to better protect pedestrians worldwide, generate action on the measures needed to do so, and contribute to achieving the goal of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 to save 5 million lives.

This week is all about the UN Global Road Safety Week and Brian writes about his recent experiences exploring why this week is so important. As a global community fighting for road safety, we must unite in this week and promote pedestrian safety everywhere! Come along and read Brian's column here.

We are very excited to announce that we have a new CORE Group Representative for the North American region. Ms Emily Reynolds will replace outgoing member Ms Jennifer Heatley who has worked with YOURs since its inception in 2007. Emily is a vibrant and passionate road safety advocate and will take over the reigns for the coordination of the North American Region.

The Second United Nations Global Road Safety Week begins next week (6th May 2013) and the theme is pedestrian safety. To promote safe walking all around the world, the Long Short Walk initiated by the Zenani Mandela Campaign has been taken up by organizations all around the world. Here at YOURS we are mobilizing our Global Youth Network for Road Safety to take part as united force for advocacy. There is now ONE WEEK left to take part and send in your pictures!

Videos were sent in from around the world for the Global Road Safety Film Festival coordinated by LASER International with the youth category established in collaboration with YOURS. Videos sent in were of incredibly high quality and showed that young people create great videos to educate their peers, however, only one video could take the number one spot and it went to the youtube sensation that is, 'The Impossible Texting While Driving Test' video by Responsible Young Drivers.

The Second United Nations Global Road Safety Week takes place on 6-12 May 2013 and is focused on pedestrian safety. Alongside international initiatives to promote safe walking with the launch of the Long Short Walk and a call for safer pedestrian spaces worldwide, a free poster series has been published by the World Health Organization for use during the week and beyond.

Each year, more than 270,000 pedestrians lose their lives on the world's roads, while millions are left with injuries or permanent disabilities.  Pedestrian safety: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners, jointly developed by WHO, the FIA Foundation, the Global Road Safety Partnership and the World Bank, and many experts from around the world, provides practical information on how to plan, implement and evaluate a pedestrian safety programme.

Thank you to all participants who submitted their road safety films to the Youth Category of the Global Road Safety Film Festival 2013. There were videos sent in from all across the world from Russia to Africa, from UK to Canada. The jury will meet tomorrow (23rd April 2013) and select the best film for Wednesday's Global Road Safety Film Festival.

On the 15th October 2012, the Caravane began its 50 day journey across 7 UEMOA (Economic Union in West Africa) taking road safety to hundreds of thousands of young people. Alongside the project, volunteers captured the key stages of the event of video and YOURS was tasked with the production of the Caravane Movie which is now available to view now.

In late November last year, YOURS worked with a group of inspiring youth leaders in Nairobi, Kenya and trained them to become road safety peer-educators and advocates. Since then, the freshly trained youth leaders have been planning their own workshops to reach out to young people in their country and started training youth in different regions of Kenya!

The 6th GRSP Asia Seminar and iRAP workshop took place in Manila, Philippines from 1st-4th April 2013 and offered an update on road saftey from the Asian continent. This year’s seminar brought together more than 150 participants from all over Asia and other regions. The seminar provided the opportunity to build and strengthen networks for future planning and implementation of road safety initiatives.

Brian is back with a new column on the use of social media in road safety. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and so forth offer a unique place to reach our target audience with road safety messages although it does pose some challenges too. Read what Brian thinks about the social media revolution in Africa here.

The Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit is pleased to announce that their free online certificate training program, 'Road Traffic Injury Prevention and Control in Low and Middle-Income Countries (RTIP) is now live and ready to be used right now! This new online training offers an insight into road safety around the world and inclues multimedia and lectures to train all interested for FREE.

MY World is a global survey for citizens led by the United Nations. It aims to capture people's voices, priorities and views, so that global leaders can be informed as they begin the process of defining a new development agenda for the world. The global road safety community insist that road safety and better transport should be on this global agenda and you can vote to make it happen!

The deadline for the LASER International Global Film Festival closes. The deadline has been extended to 20th April 2013 (for free) to the Youth Category of the festival. If you've created a film for road safety, now is your chance to get international recognition from the global road safety community for your work.

The 3rd Global meeting of NGOs advocating for road safety and road traffic victims is taking place this week (Thursday 4th April 2013) in Antalya, Turkey. The alliance represents over 90 countries advocating all areas of road safety and this meeting offers an opportunity to meet and continue the movement for road safety around the world. 

The world is gearing up for the Second United Nations Global Road Safety Week taking place on 6-12 May 2013. The theme for the week is pedestrian safety and alongside events planned to call for safer pedestrian access globally, the Long Short Walk campaign, running now, is being coordinated around the world. To add to the contribution, YOURS, along with partners have launched the pledge counter.