In the Union home of the teachers in Kyustendil on the 7th and 8th of November was the first of series of seminars of the campaign “Give way to life”. They are part of the project initiative from the Rotary clubs of Sofia and the country for reducing the number of casualties of traffic accidents in Bulgaria by educating the young people about the aggression on the road. Attendees at the opening included the deputy minister of the Ministry of Education and Science Tanya Mihaylova, deputy mayor of Kyustendil Svetoslav Vasilev, Yanka Takeva, Christo Mihailovsky – manager of the project, Zanaida Gancheva, president of Rotary club Sofia -Vazrajdane and Anelia Vasileva, president of Rotary club Kyustendil. In the two days of the seminar the expert-psychologists of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yavlena Hristova and Tanya Lekova educated the teachers for the work with the two target groups of the project. There were 31 people educated – teachers, pedagogy consultants, psychologists from Blagoevgrad, Kyustendil, Pernik, Kresna and Sofia and volunteers from Rotary clubs. The expectations are that these people will apply the lessons to their work with children aged 9 – 12 and 16 – 18. This would help for the emotional and social competency of the students. The deputy minister of education Tanya Mihaylova opened the seminar and informed that from last year the ministry is working on a program for traffic safety. She also added that her belief is that this would lead to fewer empty classroom seats due to injured in road accidents and kids left without parents. “The idea is to impact the parents through the young people that are educated in behavior models of social competency”, also said the president of the teacher’s Union. Christo Mihailovsky from Rotary club Sofia, the manager and mastermind behind the initiative said that it has long-term five-year horizon at the end of which there should be a noticeable change for the better in the black statistic in the country. “Every day we have two people killed on the roads of Bulgaria and more than 25 injured, most of whom remain disabled. The country’s economy looses more than 2 billion BGN a year and this is bad for the economy, the demography and Bulgaria’s image. That is why the reduction of the road accidents is a national cause. Now the work is for infrastructure improvement from different projects, but not the improvement of the education for reduction of the aggression and increasing the tolerance, for improving the ability to judge one’s own abilities.” he said. “If we save even one human life – that would be a success, but I am sure, that with the participation of the schools we will succeed in getting at the European level.” He said that he hopes that Bulgaria will reach the other European countries – even those of them that plan zero death from road accidents in the recent decades. In his speech the deputy mayor of Kyustendil Svetoslav Vasilev wished that after the end of this seminar we will establish the beginning of a durable process for reducing the road casualties. An interesting fact is that Kyustendil has the least amount of traffic accidents in Bulgaria according to the official statistics. That is why symbolically from there is set the beginning of the sequence of country seminars, the end goal of which is to have enough educated teachers that can pass that knowledge to the younger generation to reduce the aggression and improve the tolerance. The next seminar will be in Stara Zagora at 21 and 22nd of November with the participation of teachers from Plovdiv, Burgas, Yambol and Stara Zagora. The plan is to have another seminar in Veliko Tarnovo with which to cover the cities from Northern Bulgaria. The educational campaign “Give way to life” is realized in the frame of the project for reduction of casualties and injuries on the roads of Bulgaria realized by the initiative of Rotary club Sofia with the partnership of the Institute of psychology of MIA, department of Traffic Police with Head direction National Police – MIA, New Bulgarian University. The co-sponsor of the campaign is “Dall Bogg: Zhivot I Zdrave” Insurance Company.