• The Road Assistant project will be rolled out in three schools in the city of Madrid -Tajamar, Sagrado Corazón de Jesús and Julián Marías- with the aim of improving road safety around these centres and to include young people with Down’s syndrome and other intellectual disabilities into the work market.
• The five road assistants will observe how drivers and pedestrians behave at school opening and closing times.

Barcelona, 8 October 2015
The Abertis Foundation, Madrid City Council and the Madrid Down’s Syndrome Foundation have signed a collaboration agreement to develop the “Road Assistant” project over the course of this academic year. The idea behind the initiative is to help young people with Down’s Syndrome and intellectual disabilities enter the work market and at the same time ease congestion around the schools.

The project will provide employment for five people with Down’s Syndrome or other intellectual disabilities. They will work at three schools in Madrid -Tajamar, Sagrado Corazón de Jesús and Julián Marías-, performing tasks that will provide them with practical training and experience that should help them to find work in the future.

The Road Assistant job involves observing and gathering information about the habits of parents and students at the beginning and end of the school day, when children enter and leave school on foot or by motorised transport. This information will then be analysed by the schools and their students in order to identify and encourage the best practices to ease congestion.

The behaviours to be observed relate to the road safety talks given at schools by the Madrid municipal police: how the adults accompanying the children walk, whether they move correctly and safely, whether they pay attention to their surroundings, respect traffic signals, etc. The Madrid municipal police will also be involved in coordinating and assessing the results of the project, working in collaboration with the road assistants, schools, parents’ associations,

students and families. The initiative has forged a link between the schools, involving students and assistants in the work to define the values and preventive factors needed to promote safer mobility.

Participants in the Road Assistant project
For this project, a collaboration agreement was signed between the Abertis Foundation, Madrid City Council and the Madrid Down’s Syndrome Foundation.

Abertis Foundation
The Abertis Foundation has been the driver of this project, aware of the priority given to road safety among school children by the City Council. This initiative is part of the Foundation’s Road Safety Programme which has been running since 2003 and includes supporting research, the organisation of scientific conferences, road safety education in schools and awareness campaigns. The Abertis Foundation seeks suitable partners for each project, with the ongoing support of the public administrations – responsible for road safety policies. In words of the director of Foundation Abertis Sergi Lougney, notices the commitment across the Foundation in the road safety with the social incorporation.

The Foundation, which develops the CSR policy of Abertis, a world leader in mobility and transport infrastructure management, operates in the social, environmental and cultural spheres. Its commitment to society is highlighted by an extensive road safety programme primarily targeting the most vulnerable drivers and pedestrians: school children, young people who lack driving experience and older drivers. The Abertis Foundation’s activities in the area of culture involve partnerships with leading cultural institutions around the world. Regarding environmental protection, its Castellet Castle headquarters are a UNESCO world centre for Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves.

Madrid City Council
Road safety education is one of Madrid City Council’s priorities and one of the preventive initiatives rolled out by the municipal police force in schools in the city.

Road safety, especially around schools, is one of the Madrid City Council’s main objectives. The aim is to raise awareness among students and people in transit around school areas of the importance of responsible behaviour, respect and civility, and the need to improve safety on the journeys to and from school. A knowledge of road safety will help children become more independent and more secure in these areas.

The Madrid Down’s Syndrome Foundation
The Madrid Down’s Syndrome Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to help people with Down’s Syndrome or other intellectual disabilities become independent and fully integrated into society. The work carried out by the Foundation in Madrid over the past 25 years would not have been possible without the collaboration of the people and entities that support its work.