RYDA Geelong
RYDA Geelong
RYDA is on again next Thursday 16th February
120 Bellarine Secondary College and 35 Geelong Lutheran College Year 12 students will be attending this fantastic program.
Several Geelong district Rotarians have volunteered to train to be RYDA facilitators and Kathy Ryan (Corio Bay) and Rod Stewart (Queenscliffe) will be presenting sessions at RYDA for the first time.
Other Rotarians are volunteering on the day from Geelong, Corio Bay, Drysdale, Ocean Grove and Queenscliffe.
As funding from clubs and external sources is presently unreliable, we have set student fees at $25 to cover costs.
Club support
As we’ve said before, it would be great if this could be a true joint project of all Rotary clubs in Geelong and district.
While some clubs have replied to our request for financial support – thank you Highton, Ocean Grove and Drysdale, and P Sue Van Every from Drysdale has joined our committee (thanks Sue!), the response has generally been disappointing. We realise clubs have many calls on their funds and the time of members but this is a great opportunity to get involved with and support the youth of our region.
If your club or members have contacts with a secondary school in your area this is a great opportunity to build on the relationship your club already has or to initiate a relationship with the school.
RC Ocean Grove was approached by Bellarine Secondary College to assist with costs and has agreed to pay $10 per student attending. RC Drysdale also approached the school and offered to pay for students who couldn’t afford to attend. This is another way your club could support RYDA.
We are again asking clubs to appoint someone to either be on the RYDA committee or be a point of contact in their club and for clubs to consider an annual contribution to RYDA or support a school directly. Also, if you know someone who has experience and enjoys working with young people ask them to consider becoming a RYDA facilitator.
Karen Pecar
RYDA Geelong Committee
0437 356 013
RYDA (Rotary Youth Driver Awareness) is an award winning road safety program that has been presented to over 500 000 students in Australia and New Zealand. RYDA is a whole day school excursion for year 11 and 12 students. It is not a learn to drive program but focuses on student attitudes and behaviour with the aim of making them safer drivers and passengers. The underlying theme is “My life my choices”.
Although the rate of death and injury to young drivers is slowly decreasing, young drivers are still over represented in the statistics. This group accounts for 22% of road deaths but only 13% of drivers. There is still much work to be done.