After several meetings, the group decided to launch the campaign "Ride our World" in which two goals were pursued: encouraging the use of bicycles and take the children to reflect on the problems caused by today's vehicles.
The Initiative
"Ride our World" wanted to take our peers to experience the benefits of using bicycles for transportation and therefore we asked the school officials to allow us to organize a bike ride around the school. Not only they agreed and supported us, but also the transit authorities of the city were interested in our proposal and helped us. We sent a letter to parents to expose the initiative and we went to each classroom to invite children and youth to come with their bike to school.
On the other hand, we invited children from 8 to 11 years to reflect on the problems of the current vehicles, asking them to design the car of the future, an environment-friendly, fast and secure vehicle. The best drawings were to be exhibited in a mural and rewarded. We also took on the task of designing a new bicycle parking lot for our school, better located than the current, with more parking stalls and safer.
Friday May 13th was a magical day at our school. More than 80 students came with their bikes and happily rode them during the breaks on the track we had set. A traffic policeman and four road safety educators sent by the mayor of the city, helped us to explain the children with songs and stories how to behave on public roads while driving their bike or when they were pedestrians. We ourselves had to be traffic wardens for a while and realized that keep the rules on the streets is the best way to care for ourselves and care for others.
That day we also displayed the car of the future designs drawn by our younger colleagues: cars powered by solar or lunar energy, flying vehicles, cars capable of cooking food for the family or self-driving vehicles, engines that expel fresh air instead of smoke... But what mostly struck us was a child who showed us that the vehicle of the future are the feet themselves. Students and school officials were so excited about the Bike Ride that wanted this activity to be performed at least twice a year and became convinced that it was necessary to improve the bicycle parking. We hope they find inspiring the design we presented.
