Car seat focus for Transport Month
Conversations about car seats have taken over in the South African parenting community. The annual Car Seats for Kids campaign launched last week, following national car seat awareness campaign #CarseatFullstop.
Car Seats for Kids is a year round initiative for Johannesburg-based NPO Wheel Well. Every year in October, IMPERIAL joins them with a campaign to honour Transport Month and encourage donations of second-hand seats.
Wheel Well is the only organization of its kind in South Africa. Owner Peggie Mars and a small dedicated team take in donations of car seats that people no longer need. They properly clean and refurbish the seats that can be safely repaired, and responsibly dispose of those that are unsafe or have been recalled. The safe seats are then made available to people who cannot afford to buy a car seat in any other way, for a small donation of whatever they can afford.
“Car seats are a necessity. They are the only way to protect a child under the age of 10 in a car,” says Peggie Mars. “With 4 children dying on South African roads every single day, and children of lower income families five times more likely to be affected, the importance of providing car seats to parents who desperately want to keep their kids safe but don’t have the means to do so, is unrivaled.”
85% of children in South Africa are not restrained in any way in passenger cars on our roads. Car passenger accidents are the fourth leading cause of unnatural death of children in our country (Medical Research Council of SA). A car seat reduces the chance of death in babies by 71% and in children by 54%.
“The numbers make it simple,” says Mars. “National car seat awareness campaign #CarseatFullstop says every child in a car seat every single time, no matter what. Too often the ‘what’ that does matter is affordability. Wheel Well and Car Seats for Kids works to provide a solution to that problem.”
HOW CAN YOU SAVE A LITTLE LIFE?
Wheel Well is joined by IMPERIAL and Jacaranda FM this month to bring Car Seats for Kids directly to the people of Gauteng. Throughout this week you will find them between 07h30 – 16h30 at the following locations:
* Cradlestone Mall: Monday, 17 October
* East Rand Mall: Tuesday, 18 October
* Broad Acres Mall: Wednesday, 19 October
* Nelspruit Crossing: Thursday, 20 October
* Central Square at Menlyn Maine: Friday, 21 October
If you have a car seat you no longer use, or if you know your brother or sister or best friend does… Take a few minutes to drop them with Peggie and the team!
If you don’t have a seat but would still love to support the initiative, why not pop onto Gumtree or another platform along those lines and buy a seat or two within your budget and donate those? That way you are supporting a family selling their seat to purchase the next size up for their little one, AND you are providing a seat to be refurbished and gifted to a child in need.
The seats collected and refurbished will be distributed on the 2nd of November at Sharonlea Primary School at 07h00. Parents driving past the school, that do not have their children strapped in, will receive one of the refurbished car seats.
If you aren’t in Gauteng, pop onto the Wheel Well website to find out where you can drop off your seats. Drop your seats at Renault dealers nationwide. They will take your seat and get it to Peggie for the Car Seats for Kids initiative.
