Take part in SAFER September 2020!

SAFER September hits next week! This has always been a special time of year for SADD, it’s a time to celebrate good decisions on the road, acknowledge the awesome work SADD members do to educate their peers and get some key road safety messages out there as the weather starts warming up and the busy summer months are on the horizon. SAFER September was a name chosen by SADD leaders in 2019, with SAFER being an acronym for Students Advocating For Everyone’s Road-safety. This is exactly what we are asking youth to do this September – take a stand for safer road use and make sure everyone understands that they have a part to play in keeping all New Zealanders safe.

2020 has been a disruptive year for all of us, school students especially. We know there is a lot going on at the moment so we encourage you to make SAFER September work for you this year. There’s lots of ways to get involved that don’t take much time or organisation, yet it can all still add up to a big impact over time. We’ve put together a bunch of ideas below that can fit into all different workloads, time-frames, group sizes and COVID-19 alert levels. The SADD team is also full of great ideas so don’t hesitate to get in touch with us for some advice.

SAFER September FAQs

What if I’m too busy in September?
No problem! You’re welcome to run activities in August, October or whenever you have the time to do it.

What do I actually have to do?
Anything goes! As with the SADD programme in general, it is entirely up to you what you do. We do suggest you take a look at the website and sign up to receive an info sheet and planning guide to help you get started. Another good place to start is by choosing one of the SADD 6 principles to focus on and picking an activity off the website. Easy!

How can I share my activity?
We would LOVE to see what you get up to. Share some photos and stories with the SADD team, tag @SADDNZ on Instagram or Facebook.

Where can I find more info?
We have a page on the website that is dedicated to SAFER September. There’s helpful videos, sample plans, activity ideas and more.

The ultimate SADD guide to SAFER September at any alert level

At the time of writing this blog, Auckland is in Alert Level 3 and the rest of the country is at Alert Level 2. We don’t know what September will bring so we’ve put together some ideas that will work no matter what Alert Level we find ourselves in! Check out these ideas: 

Level 1: During level one you are obviously free to do whatever you like with no restrictions (very exciting huh!), so things like: 

• A mini road safety expo

• Plan a presentation or guest speaker for an assembly

• A road safety themed sports competition (could even be inter-school)

• Bring the booze bus into school or another community partner

• Run Soak up some knowledge or another obstacle course 

• Organise to go out on a Police checkpoint

• Any larger event with lots of people

• Or anything mentioned below...

Level 2: As we know this one means no big events, but SADD has lots of options for smaller activities, in fact some schools prefer smaller events so here are some ideas: 

• Form time competitions e.g. Quizzes

• You could run some of the obstacle course type events that are for specific smaller groups for example year levels 

• Chalk outlines or challenges

• A scavenger hunt around the school with road safety or road code questions 

• An interactive/informative wall or board

• Create/download and handout informative pamphlets for students and their parents

• Run a smaller lunchtime Driver Education Event 

• Put out the Advisory notices on students cars at lunch time

• Road safety facts or questions in the notices

• Or anything mentioned below...
  
  

Level 3 or 4: These levels are a lot more restricted and a massive shout out to Auckland for sticking at it the last couple of weeks! You might be thinking that there is nothing you can do during these levels but we do actually have a few more digital ideas: 

• Check out the Raise Your Voice activity on our website and create something from there

• Create some funny or informative Tik toks to share

• Get SADD committee members to film encouraging videos to share

• An online SADD poster design competition

• An online survey gathering students opinions and thoughts about specific road safety issues relevant to your school/community

• Get students from your school to share their stories about learning to drive and create a video to share on your school’s social media 

• Simply share some posts on social media (could be questions from SADD’s conversation cards or other road safety facts. 

This is just a guide and simply some ideas, there are heaps more options and ideas out there. Also each school will be in a different place and each SADD group will have differing levels of time and capacity. So as always, please make it work for you and reach out to our SADD team for help. 

During the first level 4 lock down here at SADD we repurposed our 6 principles and we think these repurposed principles are still totally relevant. So remind yourself of these and feel free to tailor a SADD activity to them also! 

https://www.sadd.org.nz/sadd-response-to-covid-19

Stay in touch, send photos of what you do and be kind to yourselves and others :)