After a moment of silence in honor of Road Crash Victims, YASA presented a number of their initiatives that aim to support the efforts made towards the prevention of road crashes in Lebanon. Many deputies, ministers, political and military figures, NGOs representatives, various heads of municipalities, Lebanese universities representatives as were present.
The former Miss Lebanon, Martine Andraos, opened the ceremony by thanking everyone for their attendance, affirming her support to YASA's campaigns. Dr. Hasan El Buchra, the representative of the World Health Organization in Lebanon, asserted that the regional office of the World Health Organization and YASA launched a joint new campaign focusing on the tragedy experienced by May Sahab, ending with the slogan: "You, who loves speed, do not die from it or kill anyone with it".
Mr. Marc Harb presented the cooperation between YASA and Kidz Mondo, which will be launched in May 2013, in a wonderful project about children education and fun.
Mrs. Saada Halimeh from YASA considered what happened on February 28 was an intervention of the chamber of Ministers on the task of the legislative power and asked to enforce the new traffic law, voted on October 25 2012 by all concerned agencies.
Deputy Mohamad Kabbani, The President of the Parliamentarian Committee on Public Works and Transportation, expressed his satisfaction with the efforts made to implement the new traffic law. The New Traffic Law reviewing committee had many players among which were: Commission of Public Works and Transportation, the Ministry of Interior, representatives of the security forces, the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) and the Ministry of Justice and many Civil Society actors such as YASA. All the review committee worked together to study all 420 articles of the traffic legislation. Some reported objections and few technical errors are minimal and should not delay the implementation of the entire traffic law.
The Syrian former Minister of Transportation (2006-2011), Dr. Yarob Bader said that the common effort made between YASA and the Syrian ministry of transportation resulted in successful Syrian wide awareness and advertising campaigns which led to the decrease of death rates by 30% in 3 years.
Dr. Ziad Akl, founder of YASA, stated that he launched the new YASA website which contains around 7000 pages in different languages.
Ziad Sahab and his band participated in the event and for the closing of the annual dinner the artist Rabih Baroud performed many of his special songs.
