Chevrolet Brings The Buckle Up Safe Kids Campaign To The Mother Baby & Child Show

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – December 17, 2008: The Buckle Up Safe Kids Campaign sponsored by Chevrolet will join this year’s Mother Baby & Child Show at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre between the 18th and 20th December with the objective of reaching out to mothers and children visiting the show. Chevrolet promoters will be on site to advise and instruct visitors on child passenger safety through an interactive display, as well as to carry out live demonstrations on how to correctly install and buckle up child car seats.

The Buckle Up Safe Kids program was launched in the UAE in November this year by Chevrolet/General Motors and Safe Kids Worldwide with the support of UAE National Transport Authority and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It aims to raise awareness and understanding of the issues surrounding child passenger safety in the UAE and to prevent children from being injured and killed in and around vehicles. In particular, it focuses on encouraging the use of quality child car seats and educating parents on the dangers of leaving children unrestrained in cars.

Commenting on the participation of Chevrolet’s Buckle Up program, Saada Hammad, General Motors’ Regional PR and Communications Manager, said: “The aim of Chevrolet’s Buckle Up Safe Kids Campaign is to create advocates of child safety across the whole of society, whether they are parents, grandparents or elder brothers and sisters. We believe that Chevrolet’s participation in the Mother Baby & Child Show provides an ideal opportunity to do so and we are delighted to be taking part.”

According to a 2008 report from Safe Kids Worldwide, the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and Roadway Transportation and Traffic Safety Research Centre in UAE, there were 460 traffic deaths reported among 0-14 year olds in the UAE between 2000 and 2006. Of these, two thirds were 0-4 year old infants and toddlers. At the same time, research conducted by road safety experts in the United States has shown that correctly fitted child seats reduce child fatalities by up to 70%.

Chevrolet’s Buckle Up program works through a number of carefully targeted elements. Since its official launch in Dubai on the 5th November, a major advertising campaign, built around the theme “If you really want to hold onto them, let them go and strap them in” is underway, and an interactive roadshow has begun. Nearly 20,000 leaflets were distributed during the Roadshow’s ‘mall’ phase at Ibn Battuta, BurJuman and the new Dubai Mall, where thousands of visitors gathered for live demonstrations on how to correctly install child car seats from specially trained Chevrolet promoters on the stands.

In its next phase, the campaign will move on to schools and hospitals across the UAE in order to spread the word among target groups. In continuing this initiative, the Chevrolet Buckle Up Safe Kids Campaign aims to educate the public and, ultimately, change the laws relating to child passenger safety.

This new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative is part of General Motors and Chevrolet’s commitment towards the local community. The Safe Kids Buckle Up program was created in the United States in 1996 through a partnership between Safe Kids Worldwide and General Motors. Today the program has inspected more than a million car seats for proper installation and reached more than 19 million people at community events worldwide.