Singing Pacific songs of safety on roads

New Lynn Tongan Methodist Church member Tuipulotu Vakalahi with his grandson Bronx, 3, in one of the church car seats. Picture / Greg Bowker

Preaching road safety with religion at a West Auckland church is hailed as a breakthrough in cutting accident rates among Pacific Island people.

A programme called "Safe in His Hands" resulted in members of the Tongan Methodist Church in New Lynn becoming road safety champions in their own community.

Visitors have been surprised to hear church members burst into the Buckle Up song.

The church has 400 members and was chosen by Waitakere community and Government agencies because it was one of the largest church groups in the region and had members keen to help develop programmes.

One of them, Mr Tuipulotu Vakalahi, who works for Pasifika Healthcare, said programmes were aimed at parents of preschool children, women and the youth group.

A singing competition was held between men's and women's groups who composed road safety songs in Tongan.

Six youths created a 15-minute-long drama to perform to other youngsters with the message drive safe and sober.

An off-duty policeman taught road rules to 30 women for two nights a week over six weeks. Of those, only one failed to pass the learner-driver's licensing test.

Workshops were held to teach mothers about the right type of child restraints for their vehicles and the importance of using seatbelts.

Cost was found to be a barrier to keeping children safe so Mr Vakalahi said the church now owned 37 car seats for lending to church members.

He said some members of the congregation were raised in the islands and did not understand the New Zealand road code and were used to only a two-lane road.

"I am happy to see them learning about these things while at church."

The congregation had lost a member due to a motor accident.

In the national Road Safety Innovations Awards the church was joint winner of the $5000 premier award and the winner of the $2000 community award.

The prizemoney will go towards keeping up its road safety programme and will allow women with learners' licences to progress to their restricted licences.

Waitakere City road safety co-ordinator Kitch Cuthbert said initial difficulty in getting churches to adopt road safety was overcome by having a Pacific Islands woman, Bonnie Dowding, as the go-between.

Health Ministry statistics suggested Pacific Islands children were 14 times as likely as other children to be injured as passengers.