In most cases, people don’t follow what they preach but in the case of PSG IM, the scenario is different. In connection with the Helmet Safety Sensitization Week, from August 2 to 8, 2019, the students of PSG IM worked on one goal – take Helmet Safety Awareness to the masses.
But for ‘the masses’ the students did not look outside but within their own PSG Family. Under the brand PSG remains more than 21 institutions and it has more than 5000 bikes-scooter riders altogether. So as a first step in their mission, the PSG IM students focused on taking Helmet Safety awareness to their own PSG Family by creating few interesting initiatives.
The initiatives were given an umbrella term – Head Start. This project was executed by the final year PGDM students. One of the initiatives is Selfie Contest. PSG IM students tagged over 4000 bikes and scooters handle-bars with papers hinting about the contest where the participating students must wear their helmet properly, click a selfie, add a caption by filling the phrase “I wear helmet because______” and share it to a dedicated WhatsApp number. The best 10 would receive prizes and the winners were said to be informed via college’s social media sites such as FB and Instagram . With a positive use of social media and selfie trends, the desired objective was neared by the team and the response from the PSGians has been incredible.
With this success, the team thought of widening their reach and started to take this to the public. They took the bus routes 1C and 5 which are the longest. They found out that many bike riders in that route are on a very close proximity with the buses while riding. Footages were taken as a part of the project which show how unsafe are the nearness of riders with other vehicles.
The Avinashi road is a busy road by day and busiest by evening. A great number of people use it to commute. When two groups of PSG IM team covered the area with one in the PSG Sky Walk Bridge and the other underneath, many near-missing riders were observed by them and many (both the ridder and the pillion) failed to a wear a helmet.
As another project, they made use of the weekends (Aug 3rd and 4th), visited the joggers and walkers in Race Course road and asked them to convey the value of wearing helmet to their kith and kin. In return the team offered them delicious Annaporna coffee. With 200 cups, not just coffee; a cup of valuable of idea was shared.
On Aug 8th and 9th, the team has planned to distribute 3000 paper Rakshabandhan Bands in advance. The bands have seeds inside them and once sowed, like a normal seed gives new life and also bears a life-saving message “The Best Gift You Can Give to Your Brother/Sister is a Good Helmet” . Other activities include participating in ‘UYIR’ safety event on August 9, displaying awareness banners in 5 key areas of the city and interacting with the press.
We learned that PSG IM students have not just focused on taking the value of Helmet Awareness only on this week but on a larger timeline towards this noble initiative.