Eriomene Rhodes, a Grade 11 learner from Saldanha, is one of nine lucky learners who will accompany National Minister of Transport Dipuo Peters to the 2nd Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety in Brazil on 18 and 19 November 2015.
Eriomene (17) was a member of Diazville High School’s Participatory Educational Technique (PET) team that took part in the Road Traffic Management Corporation’s (RTMC) annual national PET and road safety debating competitions in Gauteng.
She and fellow team members Boniswa Salman, Denecké Joos, Adrianne Orphan and Pieter van Wyk won second prize in the 2015 PET competition, rural category. The team focused on hazardous locations and dangerous road practices in Vraagom Street, which is where their school is situated.
Possible solutions presented during the Diazville team presentation included scholar patrols, eco-friendly bus shelters, more road safety education, better road signage, physical barriers to stop jaywalking, raising intersections, more visible policing, and raised kerb stones to force taxis to use the taxi rank rather than going dangerously onto the pavement.
One learner from each province will be accompanying the Minister to Brazil. Eriomene became the Western Cape’s representative after drawing the lucky straw at a prize-giving ceremony at Diazville High.
In 2014, she was selected to be part of a student exchange programme to the Netherlands but was disappointed not to be able to go. She is looking forward to seeing the capital Brasilia in a month’s time.