Eldorado Park LDAC started Child Road Safety Week with a car seat drive
A car seat drive for children.
The Eldorado Park Local Drug Action Committee (LDAC) together with Eldorado Park SAPS and Wheel Well ended off Child Protection Week and started Child Road Safety Week with a car seat drive.
Wheel Well set up a stall at the recent Eldos Market and managed to donate a total of 18 car seats to needy families within the community.
Cheryl Pillay, who is the LDAC chairperson said that the initiative stems from the reality that many children lose their lives on the roads because they simply do not have car seats and are often not wearing seat belts whilst in the car.
Pillay also said that having a child in the front seat or having a child standing in the car whilst someone is driving is a form of child abuse.
“As parents, we need to take responsibility and make sure that our children are safe at all times,” Pillay added.
The LDAC team and Eldorado Park SAPS took the fingerprints and photos of children under the age of six.
“This initiative is part of Child Protection Week. It means that if anything had to happen to these children we will have some form of DNA,” said Pillay.
“We believe it falls in nicely with Child Road Protection Week,” she added.
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Peggie Mars from Wheel Well spoke about the initiative and what the organisation hopes to achieve.
“A few years ago I realised, at the time, that laws were not protecting our children in cars. Nobody was talking about car seats, nobody knew how important it was. Statistics back then showed that 11 children lost their lives on our roads every day due to car crashes, and that was when I decided that something needed to be done,” said Mars.
“It has been seven years since we have started this initiative, over 8000 children have been placed in car seats and I have lost count of the number of children who have been given reflective beanies. Years later, the awareness has grown and people are taking this seriously, that is ultimately what I wanted, for people to talk about it,” she added.
Wheel Well focuses on raising awareness in communities.
“If I can condense everything that we do into two words it would be ‘Think Kids’.
“We accept used car seats, we have them cleaned and we give them to families in need.
“Anyone who would like to donate their used car seats can simply drop them off at any Renault and Inspector car dealerships. People from the Eldorado Park community can contact Cheryl Pillay directly,” Mars concluded.
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