Practice road safety with the Peddy family
Meet the Peddy family, a group of colourful feet who would like to spread road safety awareness.
In 2003, Ndumiso Nkosi decided he wanted to use his personal experiences for a good cause and got the idea to educate people about Road Safety. At the age of 12, he almost died in a car accident and it affected him deeply. After a lot of hard work and planning, Ndumiso and his wife Glenda formed Y’r Important Road Safety, a non-profit organisation that focuses on educating motorists and pedestrians on how to be safe on the road.
The organisation describes itself as ‘a conscience-awakening campaign,’ and says that while the rules of the road may not be important to some, you’re important.
As a part of their campaign, the Nkosi family started a children’s show to help spread their message.
The show is entitled The Peddy Family Show, and follows the journey of a family of feet as they learn the rules of the road as drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.
The Peddy family were designed from a footprint of the Nkosi’s eldest daughter Langa, and got their name from the word ‘pedestrian.’ The family is also based on the colours of traffic lights, which is both eye-catching and educational; Mamma Peddy is yellow, Pappa Peddy is red, and Peddy (baby) is green.
The family show features five- to six-minute episodes with extremely catchy songs and two traffic experts (played by children). The show has been airing on Soweto TV for just over four weeks, reaching nearly 800 000 households daily.
Ndomiso said, “The show talks to adults through the children.” He elaborated on this by saying that each episode provides a new lesson to the children, who then push their parents to obey the laws of the road and follow the safety precautions.
The show, which is aimed at families, is also made by a family. The Nkosi family also play characters on the show and many of the episodes have been filmed at their house in Florida. Ndumiso and Glenda play Mamma and Pappa Peddy, their youngest daughter Ntando plays Peddy as well as a traffic expert, and Langa is the presenter. Lilitha Stuurman, who is not a family member by blood but is one by love, plays the second traffic expert in the show.
The Peddy family attends as many public events as possible to promote road safety and is hoping to increase the number of children they reach by doing educational shows at schools. Despite the huge amount of daily views on the TV show, the youngest Nkosi child, Ngcebo, remains their biggest supporter.
