Road accidents are among the main causes of unnatural fatalities in the United States and other developed countries, and cost several billions of dollars every year. Increasing public awareness of how to protect from traffic injury is considered as an important area that necessitates a broad approach involving implementation of a mixture of communal, environmental, governmental and educational strategies together with law enforcement. A considerable amount of road safety measures have been introduced by the U.S. government in recent times, yet, community interest and involvement will be advantageous as part of a comprehensive approach. For this paper, the word 'community' indicates people living in a particular geographic region in a city. This study will discuss my experience of participating voluntarily in a road safety program for community welfare in my area. For this study, community members included children, men, women of all age groups belonging to different families, ethnic backgrounds and professions living in my neighborhood. The extent of Community participation ranged from nominal or passive involvement. It was my duty to motivate community members to participate in this program. Some of them mostly young children, house wives and older adults merely contributed in watching road safety awareness dramas, documentaries and commercials. Most of the teenagers and young adults showed an interest in active contribution. I motivated them to design and execute road safety programs and participate in street theatre. Nevertheless, it was not an easy job for me to convince considerable numbers of the community members to actively participate in the activity.

1. What was observed during the experience?

The community development program is usually referred to a project where members of a community participate in a community activity as a major constituent of program. (Day, 2006) It was observed that social awareness on various issues like road safety can be enhanced with little community involvement, and that community participation can be served as one small segment of several road safety initiatives. In long run, it can make a considerable contribution as part of a coordinated and all-inclusive approach...

Road safety programs are expected to be more useful when the members of a society believe they have a responsibility to increase awareness and work towards its achievement.
It was observed that it is helpful to prepare an outline for community development program far in advance to its implementation in order to create the 'ideal' circumstances for community involvement. Nevertheless, funds and responsibility to arrange such programs in order to increase road safety majorly belongs to the concerned government departments and community involvement is beneficial in this regard but cannot substitute them and their responsibilities. However, community programs better serve as an extension to support and make agency driven programs more effective in achieving goals. (Bell and Newby, 2000) Hence, it is effectual to include community participation as a constituent of the overall road safety program.

2. How did the experience affect you?

This experience polished my ability of decision making by selecting community members to participate in the program, controlling a range of issues and project interventions. I got a chance to get untouched personally with the community members belonging to all age groups and work with them in bringing a positive change in the society. I contributed in the community development by influencing community culture through this project that eventually led to community members taking responsibility for improving their neighborhood and services. This community activity provided an opportunity to enhance my management skills as this activity involved creating and managing community committee too. Moreover, I got a chance to learn new things from people of every age group that helped me in acquiring new skills and information.

During past two decades, projects involving community involvement have recorded constructive outcomes. This experience provided me an opportunity to share, participate and contribute for community welfare. I spent my childhood and grew up in this community with my parents and siblings. I attended my school inside the community and hence I always felt I owe this community a lot and one day I have to return what…