Transaid is an international development charity. They identify, champion, implement and share local transport solutions to improve access to basic services and economic opportunity for people in Africa and in developing countries. Transaid was founded by Save the Children and The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and our Patron is HRH The Princess Royal. 

Charitable volunteers from across the transport industry cycled to Brussels at the weekend, in a bid to raise £75,000 for Transaid.

The 34-strong team had already raised £45,000 by the time they set off on the 340km ride on the 12 September  and are confident of reaching their fundraising target once the remaining sponsorship money is collected.

Riders set off from the Freight Transport Association’s head office in Tunbridge Wells and headed for Dover where they caught the ferry to Calais. Their adventure continued through France where even the most experienced cyclists were challenged by a very strong head wind. The group celebrated the end of this particularly difficult day in Bruges where they enjoyed a well-earned break and glass of beer, completing the final 74 miles to Brussels on September 14, finishing at the city’s iconic Grand Place.

Upon arrival the cyclists were greeted by a party from Y4PT and UITP, where we  put on a champagne and chocolate reception. We have been very happy to give them a moment of reward and fun after such a challenge and great action!

Sir Peter Hendy, a new Trustee!

Transaid  appointed  recently four new trustees with a wealth of experience in the health, transport and logistics sectors to help govern the charity as it continues to grow in size and scope.

One of them is Sir Peter Hendy CBE, Commissioner of Transport for London and  our UITP President.

Speaking on behalf of the trustees, Sir Peter, said “It’s a privilege to be involved with an organisation which implements truly life-changing solutions in developing countries.”

Sir Peter started his transport career in 1975 as a London Transport graduate trainee. In 2001 he served as Transport for London’s Managing Director of Surface Transport, before taking on his current role in 2006. Sir Peter was instrumental in preparing for the successful operation of London’s transport during the 2012 Olympics and was elected President of the International Public Transport Association in 2013. He was knighted in the 2013 New Year’s Honours list, having been awarded a CBE in 2006.

The first Transaid was established within Save the Children (UK) as a voluntary group of transport industry individuals. Peter Linney, who had just retired from a senior position in British Rail, took up the day to day management of Transaid. The British Railways Board provided office space and administrative support. Over the next 10 years, Transaid volunteers, from organisations such as TNT, P&O and the British Army, carried out a number of short-term projects. In those days, the focus was largely on emergency operations, rather than long-term development, and projects included a review of the potential to handle containerised emergency supplies through Mozambique ports and the specifications for an emergency ambulance service in Swaziland.  The transport management handbook for Save The Children was also written.

Thinking long-term

In the early 1990’s the founders began to think about the role of transport in development, and particularly how lack of transport impacted on the delivery of essential services such as health and education. Research with the Ministry of Health in Ghana led to the realization that a lack of management skills, rather than a lack of transport, was causing a bottleneck in the delivery of everyday health services.

A two-year Save the Children project started in the Ministry of Health in Ghana in early 1993. This was the first long-term programme of its kind by Transaid and marked a shift in focus towards sustainable development.

The future

Transaid is now beginning to focus more intensively on livelihoods work, based on the knowledge that Africa needs an efficiently run transport system in order to provide better opportunities to trade and make a living. Improving the efficiency, safety, availability and professionalism of commercial transport will create work opportunities in the industry, reduce transport costs, open up trade and make basic goods and services more available and affordable.

This is what is meant by sustainable development, looking at the root causes of problems and building the skills and knowledge of local people to tackle them. It isn’t quick and it isn’t easy, but we believe it is the only way we will make a lasting difference.

However, the amount of high profile natural disasters in recent years has brought attention back to the relationship between logistics and emergency aid and Transaid has played an advisory role in the development of two new, humanitarian initiatives – the development of the new Fritz Institute Certificate in Humanitarian Logistics and providing advice to the new CILT Humanitarian Logistics and Emergency Programme (HELP).

One thing which remains unchanged is transport’s importance to the health and wealth of all nations. Trucks, trains and ships are so highly visible on the world’s roads, railways and seas, but the essential goods and services that they carry, and the millions of people who work behind the scenes to get them where they need to go, remain largely invisible and forgotten.

Transaid has been built on the knowledge that skilled people make transport work. It’s up to us to find ways to build those skills where they’ll make the most difference and to continue to harness the skills of the best in the transport industry.

A few days ago I met Novia Salcedo representatives, whose headquarters are in Bilbao.  At our siege in Brussels, we talked about creating a possible partnership for many interesting different projects , all related to a fundamental issue of these years: the situation of helplessness and youth unemployment which is an unacceptable scourge for the people of the second decade of 21st century.

The idea is to be on board for the International Campaign for Youth Employment Decade 2013-2016 and, secondly, to have young people from Spain developing and collaborating with us on the light of our Employouth tool’ development.

The International Campaign for Youth Employment Decade 2013-2016  is an initiative of the civil society born in Spain,  with an objective to generate an international movement of reflection, thought, debate and action, that provides ideas, content and solutions for the unemployment situation or the situation of no decent employment that millions of youths are experiencing in hundreds of places across the world.
The final objective of this Campaign is for the United Nations General Assembly to declare 2019-2028 ‘Youth Employment Decade’ as an opportunity to drive the economic and social transformation of organizations and countries.

Novia Salcedo believe that the solution to the big problems that global society is facing needs to go hand in hand with big and feasible dreams. Y4PT do believe so, too!

In this dream, action-solution, they suggest beginning with a proposal for economic and social change on three levels – people-organisations-society-, towards one more inclusive. And they make this proposal taking as a guiding thread the integration of youths in the human, economic and social development by launching specific actions on a global scope, compatible and complementary with those of a local scope in order to reduce youth unemployment that we all face across the world. Therefore, they are talking about an important exercise of Social Innovation at a global level. We’d love to be on board with our Y4PT Foundation.

To successfully carry out this ambitious project it is necessary to reconcile many allies,  some within reach of NSF but others not. That is why we need the cooperation of multiple local and global agents, governmental and no-governmental, that go along with us through the different facets of the project, with a multidirectional cooperation model that help us achieve the objectives we are pursuing.

To lay out social innovations of this significance requires a high impact operation, that is exciting and in which we can all be involved. Given the extreme severity of youth unemployment we can no longer look away.

It is time to decide. We owe them answers.

Concretely,Y4PT will be also very happy  to accompany for a long period one or more youth from Spain, selected by Novia Salcedo, in order for them to start learning technical and transversal competencies, developing our Employouth International Job Bank in the field of  Sustainable Mobility. This Youth from Spain will undergo with us thorugh a geographical mobility and an exchange of knowledge with all the other Y4PT representatives around the world and by doing sowe are  offering them a kind of worldwide “ coaching and learning” experience.

Alessandra Gorini

What is the Youth Employment Decade?  

The Youth Employment Decade expects that the geographic area where it is implemented includes municipalities, regions, countries, public and private entities, non-profit and profit organisations, networks related to youth and/or employment, academic institutions, religious institutions, unions, governments, etc. that are developing activities within this framework.

That is, the Decade will take place anywhere in the world where, through different initiatives and activities promoted by the civil society or in cooperation with the public sector, there is a wish to join in the achievement of its objectives, including:

1. Make a call to attention at the highest political and social levelabout the current situation of youth unemployment across the world.
   2. To promote efforts in order to comply with the international commitments entered into with regards to employment and decent jobs.
   3. To open participating spaces and intergenerational and intercultural dialogue among youth and the political and social authorities to address the issue of unemployment with the challenges and the potentials of youths themselves.
   4. Suggest priorities, content and lines of action in the political, social and economic fields to combat youth unemployment and no decent jobs, including gender discrimination.
   5. Point the attention toward policies and proactive activities that guarantee sustainable management of the access of youth to the labour market in the long term, both in terms of quality and quantity.
   6. To promote research, creation of knowledge and interchange of good practices with regards to youth employment.
   7. To undertake action to increase awareness of the society as a whole about the risks and consequences of youth unemployment and its role in the eradication of poverty and in the economic and social transformation and growth of countries.
   8. To achieve the commitment, cooperation and investment from all agents involved during not only the decade 2019-2028, but also beyond.

In the mid-term these objectives will be transformed into results, preferably quantifiable (so as to never again return to massive unemployment, sudden changes of income distribution and generational inequality, indicators of social cohesion and participation, public welfare, no decent jobs, gender discrimination, etc.). And create an organisational structure able to respond and guarantee the celebration of the Youth Employment Decade in the world in accordance with their objectives and results through the activities, projects or programs that are defined for each level -local, regional, national, international- involved in it.

The Roads and Transport Authority RTA called upon Emirati youth and residents, aged 18-30, in all emirates to participate in the Dubai Youth for Public Transport DY4PT initiative. The initiative aims at activating the role of youth in promoting and encouraging the use of public transport through innovative, recreational, educational, promotional and awareness activities that contribute to realizing sustainability.

Move around your city by using public transport, cycling and/or walking for one week and share your experience with us by filling up our online survey.
Your voice will be heard at the 2014 UITP MENA Transport Congress in Dubai and it will also influence the public transport decision-making process worldwide; in fact, we will present the results of the Survey, at difference international Conferences and Congresses!