Delhi students transform dangerous roads outside schools to fun havens

New Delhi
Waiting outside their school for their parents to arrive to take them home on a cloudy afternoon, three seven-year-old girls are spinning their little umbrellas and jumping on newly placed rainbow tiles. A little further, a group of women, having arrived much before the closing bell, sit on benches talking about their children’s upcoming semester exams. Towards another end of the street, one bench is fully occupied by a street vendor lying down, talking on the phone, as he rests before kids start flocking to his stall to relish golguppas.
With table-top crossings, landscaped and shaded waiting areas, painted walls, play pockets, cycle tracks, parking space and a regulated traffic management plan, this is a 250-metre stretch outside DAV Public School in Vasant Kunj — the first roadin the Capital to be co-designed by children. It is expected to be formally inaugurated in October.
“It used to be very dry and boring outside the school earlier and there were only vehicles here. This redesign is beautiful as we have a lot of space to wait or play outside with friends and we don’t have to rush home. It is fun to wait now and nobody feels scared even after most students have left,” Shweta, a Class 2 student, said.
Under the Safe School Zone project, nine-year-old children, along with a team from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D), have designed the road based on their experiences and problems while commuting. The “250 metres of happiness” project by students of DAV, Vasant Kunj, was approved by the transport department before design changes were implemented by the Public Works Department (PWD).
“After extensive surveys about how children commute to school, who accompanies them, what is their preferred mode, and what they think is the problem outside the school premises, we held workshops and discussed these issues with children. They chipped in with their personal stories of discomfort while walking to school. They came up with names and ideas for the road, based on what they wanted to feel safe. With the project prepared approved, we have now completed work on India’s first student-friendly street co-designed by nine-year-olds,” Ruchi Varma, founder of Humanqind, a social design organisation that partners with IIT-D, said.
Alongside this development, 10 similar projects aimed at improving safety on roads outside schools are at different stages of planning and implementation in the Capital.
“A presentation was made last year to the transport minister and the proposed designs by all schools were showcased. The preliminary designs were approved, and these will be formalised soon as the experts sit with the government agencies and discuss all the plans,” a senior transport department official said.
All 11 schools held workshops and sessions with students, besides undertaking spot inspections, for submitting proposals through chart drawings and 3D models. Experts then turned these into technical road design proposals and presented them to the authorities.
“The DAV School project was completed in July and is yet to be formally inaugurated. We plan to inaugurate it sometime this month. Students, as well as other agencies, have appreciated the work and we have started working on the designs suggested around other schools as well,” said a senior PWD official.
As one reaches the arterial road towards the school from Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, the transformation is clear. On both sides of the school, a high table-top crossing with cobbled stones and red tiles immediately lowers vehicle speeds and visually alerts motorists of entering a slow zone. The area between the crossings is visible; the wall along the entire stretch is painted by students, with a bright green cycle track, and benches and bollards installed for sitting. At every few steps, colourful tiles have also been used to either make the space more vibrant or demarcate game zones, such as snakes and ladders or hopscotch.
“We knew nothing about the road safety concepts when we started working, but gradually, realised that we knew exactly what the problems were near the school. We came up with solutions that we presented in exhibitions, through models, and showed those to various authorities. Meanwhile, Covid-19 hit and much of the work became slow. Now, after four years, it is so heartening to see the results of our work,” Debabrata Ray, a student of Class 9, who was around 11 years old when the project started, said.
Under the project, 60 trees were also planted outside the school to provide natural shade to waiting areas — this was a student initiative. The project also encompasses two government schools that share a boundary with DAV School.
“The kids were very small when they became part of the road safety club. They didn’t understand everything, but the process was informative and hands-on. They were first encouraged to just share their experiences of commuting to school, how they do it, what they feel and what scares them. Then, they walked around the area and discussed problems or hindrances. Finally, they made presentations in school,” Manju Arora, the teacher in charge of the project, said.
She said the process became more interesting when the students made presentations outside the school to authorities, as it instilled confidence that the changes would be translated on the ground.
“We learnt a lot about road safety and how to present ourselves and our problems with clarity. We also learnt problem solving. Each problematic element was discussed separately and we brainstormed the best solution for it,” Class 9 student Jahnavi Chauhan, who was part of the road safety club, said.
A survey of around 300,000 students from 11 schools, one from each district of Delhi, conducted as part of the project revealed that in all schools, a minimum of 35% and up to 80% of students walked to school, but footpaths outside schools were broken or encroached upon. At five schools, there was also haphazard parking of buses and vans which was a major concern.
“After the workshops, we walked around the school and realised that there were many problems that needed to be addressed. The footpath was broken and that made it unsafe and difficult to walk, especially for smaller children. We needed the haphazardly parked vehicles to be removed and the speed of vehicles outside school needed to be reduced. There were also too many e-rickshaws around that went in all directions, causing traffic. In the design we prepared, we looked at many such issues and more,” Smridhi Arora, a Class 8 student of Jaspal Kaur Public School — it named its safe school project “Happy School Zone” — said.
Most parents said they would be more willing to send their children to school walking, cycling or using vans and other public transport if the speed limit around schools was strictly enforced. The most common problems highlighted by all schools included broken and narrow footpaths, lack of trees, speeding, absence of streetlights for winter mornings and lack of separate entry for cars and cabs.
“Schools are an important part of the community and a nucleus of change. Our project is not just named rainbow, it is actually colourful and covers a wide spectrum from safety of students to aesthetics of the neighbourhood and sustainability of the solutions. I am amazed at the girls’ capacity, and this project shows what wonders can be done if the stakeholders are involved in decision making. With its implementation, I’m sure the journey to school will be safe, happy and happening for all students,” Sarita Batra, head of Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Ghitorni, said. The school named its street project “Rainbow Dream”.
Other projects include Sapno Ka School (Government Boys Senior Secondary School, Gokalpuri), Pyara School Zone (Government Boys Senior Secondary School, Vishwas Nagar), Humari Duniya (Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Zeenat Mahal), Surakshit Sapna (RSBV, Shakarpur), A Beautiful School Dream (Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Mundka), Our Creative World (Sarvodaya Co-ed, Hari Nagar), Sensitive Abode of Learning (Sachdeva Public School, Rohini) and Humara Surakshit Vidyalaya (Government Boys Senior Secondary School, Najafgarh 2).