In connection with the 23^rd National Road Safety Week January 01 – 07, 2012, school children in Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala, bore witness to the start of an innovative campaign by Kerala Police to create a culture of safe and civilized road-use behavior throughout the state.

On January 06, 2012, Dr B Sandhya IPS, Inspector General of Police –

Thrissur Range (& State Nodal Officer, Janamaithri Suraksha Project) inaugurated the state-wide distribution programme of an educational road safety audio CD among schools by Kerala Police, at the Jawahar Balabhavan. The event was attended by senior police officials of the District, including Thrissur City Police Commissioner Sri P Vijayan IPS, Asst. Commissioners of Police Sri Thomas, Sri Shahul Hamid, Sri Mohamed Arif, Sri Radhakrishnan Nair, Deputy Superintendent of Police Sri Jayaraj, and several other police officers. Adv. Vidya Sangeeth, Chairperson – Thrissur District Panchayath Public Works Standing Committee was a special invitee to the event.

At the venue, Pappu the Road-Sense Zebra, official road safety mascot of Kerala Police, danced to the catchy tunes of the Pappu Zebra Road-Sense Rhymes, sung live by Franco and an accompanying group of youthful singers, to the cheers of more than two hundred excited school students. Artist Nandan Pillai, OrgPEOPLE Founder & Creator of Pappu Zebra, Cine Artist Sri Jayaraj Warrier, Sri Joy Mannoor, President – Thrissur Press Club and Sri Vinay Varma Raja, Chief Executive Officer & Director, OrgPEOPLE, were the other dignitaries present on the occasion.

Representing various community groups of road users at the event were: Sri Rajan Diamond, State Secretary – Kerala Tipper Earth-Movers’ Association; M S Premkumar, President – Thrissur District Bus Operators’ Association; Sri James Muttikal, Secretary – Thrissur District Two Wheelers Association, and Auto Union office-bearers Johnson Kunnathangadi and Joby E J. Copies of the Road-sense Rhymes Audio CD were handed over to the office-bearers of these organisations by Dr Sandhya IPS and Sri P Vijayan IPS.

A few days earlier, on January 03, 2011, the Pappu Zebra Road-Sense

Rhymes Audio CD had been formally released by H H Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, Maharaja of Travancore (Patron, OrgPEOPLE) in presence of Sri Jacob Punnoose IPS, Director General of Police, Kerala at Pattom Palace, Trivandrum, to kick-off the statewide programme.

The Pappu Zebra Road-Sense Rhymes Audio CD is an educational road safety product developed by OrgPEOPLE with the support of Infosys Foundation, Bangalore, which seeks to educate school students about basic principles of road safety, through the entertaining and contemporary medium of songs. The bi-lingual Audio CD contains 7 Road-sense Rhymes (5 Malayalam, 2 English) penned by Artist Nandan Pillai, and set to music by the singer and musician Franco, with narration by Cine Artiste Jayaraj Warrier, and vocal rendition by a group of talented school students of Thrissur.

“Pappu the Road Sense Zebra” – a cute and attractive road safety mascot – was developed in 2009 to promote road safety awareness among community

members, especially children. Pappu Zebra was adopted as the official road safety mascot of Kerala Police in June 2009, and figures as the central character in a series of road safety print media products including Road-sense Rhymes, Road-Sense Stories (Illustrated), Road-sense Plays, and several road safety hand-books and posters. In September 2010, Pappu Zebra won an award at the International Safety Media Awards event in London. In January 2011, the Pappu Zebra mascot was co-opted for community-based road safety programmes by officials in the states of Orissa and Rajasthan. And in May 2011, the Pappu Zebra – Art of Living project was launched in Bangalore by H H Sri Sri Ravishankar, Head of the Art of Living Foundation, at the launch of the United Nations’ Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 – 2010.

Now, this digital Avatar of Pappu Zebra has brightened up the New Year 2012, through this Audio CD, and later this year, Pappu Zebra Road-sense Animated Films will also be released by OrgPEOPLE for community-wide dissemination. In the words of Pappu the Road-Sense Zebra,..“Come! Join the Road-sense Community..!”