Children of preschool age and first-fourth graders can learn the most important road traffic rules and how to behave in traffic as pedestrians with the help of puppets. The interactive lesson-play “Tronca-ponca, vij” is a new education-training project launched by the Municipal Puppet Theater “Guguta” in Chisinau in partnership with the National Patrolling Inspectorate and the Moldovan-Swiss Regionalization of Pediatric Emergency and Intensive Care Services Project (REPEMOL), IPN reports
REPEMOL manager Silvia Morgoci said the objective of this initiative is to raise children’s and parents’ awareness of the risk of road accidents and to teach the children how to behave in the street and in traffic, depending on the particularities of age. “By this interactive lesson-play, we want to make the children and parents think and speak about street safety measures and correct behaviors for preventing road accidents involving children,” she stated.
Director of “Guguta” Theater Gabriela Lungu said the idea of putting on such a play appeared some time ago, but was put into practice only now. “We wanted to show that the traffic rules can be learned not only in the presence of the police officer with the nightstick in his hand. We wanted to present these rules to the children by game so that they are easier understood. It was hard to combine the puppet and the rule, but I think we managed to,” she stated.
She added that the play was included in the theater’s repertoire and will be presented monthly. There will also be staged a tour though the country. This month the play will be performed two more times, on November 29 and 30, starting at 11am. A ticket costs 25 lei.
According to the National Patrolling Inspectorate, 143 of the 1,076 road accidents that happened in the first six months of this year involved children. Six children were killed, while 137 were injured in them.
