Esmael Seid Yimer

Esmael Seid Yimer is a PhD student in Social Work and Social Development with a passion for preventing child road traffic injuries through community-driven interventions and advocacy. Esmael knows that every school journey represents a high-risk moment for children in Wolkite Town, Ethiopia, where road traffic injuries remain one of the leading causes of unintentional child deaths. These incidents often occur in everyday spaces such as outside of homes, markets, and school gates, where children should feel safest. In response, Esmael’s Walk Safe program equips children, parents, and teachers with practical road safety skills, strengthening community awareness and shared responsibility. Through targeted training, public awareness campaigns, and school-based activities, Walk Safe is helping to build a local culture where children’s safety on the roads is protected, prioritized, and championed by everyone.

In the first year of the Accelerator Fund, Esmael’s team conducted a baseline assessment of children’s pedestrian knowledge and behaviours and mapped traffic risks around schools through observations and teacher interviews. These findings informed targeted classroom lessons and guided roadside practice sessions for over 170 students, helping them learn how to cross roads safely and understand their vulnerability to traffic injuries. Esmael also trained 12 teachers across four primary schools to deliver ongoing road safety education and lead school road safety clubs. Additionally, he engaged more than 200 parents through child-led safety messages that encouraged safer road habits at home.