Senior high school students will be challenged to change the way they think about road safety next week when they participate in the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness (RYDA) program.
The Rotary Clubs of Leeton and Leeton Central are continuing their partnership with industry leader, Road Safety Education Limited (RSE) to bring the award winning youth road safety program to Year 11 students from 14 high schools from across the region.
RYDA is RSE’s award winning road safety education program which has been available since 2001 and has seen over 600,000 students attend the workshop across Australia and New Zealand. The workshop content has been developed according to best practice guidelines for road safety education in consultation with road safety experts, professional bodies, government and the educational sector and includes the latest research.
RSE provides training for workshop facilitators; Leeton RYDA facilitators include NSW Police Officers, Council Road Safety Officers, Driver Trainers and crash survivors.
The RYDA program is a series of practical and powerful workshops that provide students a unique opportunity to learn essential life skills at a critical time in their lives. It takes each student one school day to complete the program.
“Whether driving or travelling with friends every young person contributes to the safety of the road users around them - RYDA gives students the tools and strategies they need to make good choices from any seat in the car,” said Elizabeth Mudford, Narrandera Shire Council’s Road Safety Officer.
Leeton RYDA has been held at Yanco Agricultural Institute annually since 2008. Over 4000 students have already attended the highly engaging and memorable one day program with close to 500 students registered for the 2020 program to be held from February 25 to 27.
Students attending are from schools in Leeton, Yanco, Narrandera, Griffith, Hay, Ardlethan, Ardlethan, Barellan, Coleambally, Hillston, Lockhart and Oaklands.
‘We are very excited to be offering the program to local students and students from other areas of the Riverina with some students travelling several hours to attend our well organised event,” said Mr David Lang, Leeton Central Rotary Club.
“The support we have received from schools and the local communities has been phenomenal,” added Mr Bob Parsons, Leeton Rotary Club.
RYDA is made possible through the support of RSE’s corporate partners, BOC, Toyota, Bridgestone, MTAA Super and Boral. Locally RYDA is supported by NSW Police Force through Murrumbidgee Police District, NSW Police Youth Command, Murrumbidgee Traffic and Highway Patrol Command; Leeton, Narrandera and Lockhart Shire Councils; Griffith City Council; Yanco Agricultural Institute.
The RYDA program runs in Leeton (Yanco) from 25 – 27 February – media opportunities are available with various local schools attending across all days. Photos can be supplied on request.
Further information can be found at www.rse.org.au
