SADD Stories with...Isellah
We asked Isellah from Craighead Diocesan School in Timaru who has been involved with SADD for 4 years, to share some of her thoughts about the best ways to get started with SADD.
What sort of advice would you have for someone who has recently got involved with SADD?
My biggest advice is to attend all SADD meetings, talk with your liaison member as they can open your eyes to a lot of different possibilities – and provide you with many opportunities. These can be things like getting you connected with your local Police which is an awesome way to encourage and support your community to drive safer on New Zealand roads. It also gives you the chance during the meetings to meet other students who are passionate about SADD and allows you to openly discuss different ideas you all have on how to make a difference in your community.
In your school there are many ways to promote SADD. These can range from putting up posters (you can get some for free from the SADD website!), hosting SADD activities once a month like the Post it Pledge (there are more awesome activities with informative videos on the SADD website) or talking about events you can do together to get everyone involved such as the Phone Free 48!
Keep up to date with annual conferences that SADD have. They happen once a year in different locations and provide a great chance to meet others of a similar age to you. This is helpful because you can talk about the differences of promoting road safety in their school/community compared to yours. This can give you a chance to take new ideas from other schools and use them in your own school. It’s awesome because get to make new friends at the same time!
The SADD Instagram and Facebook page are constantly posting new ideas that you can try out as well as some really fun competitions that you can encourage those around you to participate in (a lot of these competitions get you and your SADD team some pretty sweet prizes so why not?!). By following these pages, it also shows you what some other schools around New Zealand are doing to promote SADD, which can give you even more ideas to help you to make a difference!
Find your WHY. Why do you promote SADD? If you truly have a passion for something you can make a difference. There are so many opportunities out there just waiting for you if you choose to take them. Remember – everything you do can make a difference to keeping our roads safer!
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