By Alana Mitchelson
A BERWICK student has won Metro Trains’ annual Rail Safety Week poster competition promoting safe travel on trains.
Grade 6 Berwick Primary School student Chenuli Haththimuni’s winning entry depicted Dumb Ways to Die campaign characters on a train platform along with a number of safety messages including “behind the yellow line”, “mind the gap“, “walk your wheels“ and “level crossings – lights? Bells? Gates? Wait!”
Chenuli was presented with an iPod Nano and Dumb Ways to Die show bag. She also won a school visit from the Dumb Ways to Die campaign mascots on Friday 19 August, with Grade 5 and 6 students receiving a safety presentation from Metro customer experience director Rob Guest.
Mr Guest said this year the competition received a record number of entries.
“Metro wants to instil safe behaviour – especially around trains- from a young age. Our community education unit engages with more than 100,000 people and visits 350 schools each year, providing helpful information on how to use the rail network as well as spreading the safety message,” Mr Guest said.
“Rail Safety Week is a chance to remind the community that careless or reckless behaviour around trains can have the direst consequences.
“We were blown away by the creativity shown by students this year, and Chenuli is certainly a worthy winner.”
The Dumb Ways to Die campaign became the most awarded campaign at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity after its launch in 2012 and has since generated about 100 million personal pledges internationally to be safe around trains.
The poster competition is open to Grade 5 and 6 students across Melbourne each year to coincide with Rail Safety community awareness week from 15 to 21 August to encourage students to be safe around trains.
