Teenagers at the Teen Enterprise Week organised by the Enterprise Development Centre of the Pan-Atlantic University took part in the Train Them Young Initiative (#2TYI) today. The Train Them Young Initiative seeks to equip young people with basic Health and Safety Skills to lead safer lives: fire safety, road safety, personal safety, first aid. As budding entrepreneurs, the teenagers were taught on different aspects of safety they could encounter in the course of work. They learned how to administer CPR, different techniques to help someone choking, considerations in ensuring fire safety amongst other stuff. This is really important because accidents and other emergencies could occur anywhere and anytime.
Your child also needs to learn these things. There are 4 major reasons they need safety knowledge:
Increased safety consciousness
This always leads to future behaviour modification. Most habits taken into adulthood are learned in childhood. This is why it is important to ingrain safety skills and habits in young people now. Doing this will be beneficial to our collective future as we would be raising young adults who make safe choices easily because it is their second nature.
You will not always be there
No matter how much you love your child, you will not be with the child 24/7. Sometimes, even if you are there you might not be able to make the safe choice either due incapacitation or ignorance. Wouldn’t you want your child to able to save themselves even in your absence? Wouldn’t you be glad that others were saved because your child took the right actions? Do not let your absence put your child at risk, equip them with safety knowledge
They can actually act in an emergency
The fact that children are small does not mean they cannot act in an emergency. Recently, a little girl was in the news because she saved her blind grandmother from a smoke-filled building. She was able to do this with the knowledge she got from a visit to the fire station. Imagine she didn’t know what to do? You guessed right, it would have been a sad story. Do not underestimate children.
They become change agents
Children are very good at spreading information to siblings, parents, friends and all they come in contact with. This leads to change in other members of society and lends credence to the fact that an enlightened society is a safer place for all.
Summer is here again, invite us to teach your children life-saving skills. Send an email to ugochi@thesafetychic.com and we would fit you into the schedule.
Be intentional about safety!
