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Wattala First Aid Programme 7 September 2006
Children's Training Programme 26 - 28 July 2006

07 September 2006 - 110 children attended the first aid programme. We started of with a simple introduction of ADT and the staff members.  Before starting the programme, the children had a  singing session and games sessions.

The programme commenced with a presentation on “safety”. The children were shown pictures and each of them were asked to identify the dangers in each of the pictures. We talked about how we can prevent such accidents from happening. Most of the children identified the surroundings and the dangers that were pointed out. Some of the children actually came out with points and dangers that were not seen before by any of us. Even after the exercise had finished, children kept coming up and showing us new dangers and solutions that they had come up with. This was quite an encouragement for us, as this showed that the children were really interested in the theme.

The children were then taught how to put First Aid into practice. We discussed on how to handle cuts and bruises and broken limbs, and how to help someone before they get to a hospital. The children were grouped for this and each of the groups were given strips of bandages. This way the children themselves were able to do the activities. Try things out themselves. The children were finding it difficult because it was the first time that they were handling bandages etc. so we chose pairs from each group and had them do the first few exercises. The others watched and later on did some binding up themselves! We also discussed how to make splints.

Each of the children were given a chance to make posters of what they had learnt. They had to make a poster which they can use to teach others, mainly their parents, what they had learnt.  At the end of the day the children had created masterpieces in their own way. Some children found very interesting methods of getting the message across.  One child had put what he had learnt in one sentence “First Aid is Food to the Body”. Though there where children who didn’t want to participate in this activity and didn’t seem very interested in cutting and pasting or drawing, every child had a poster to show at the end of the day. The children got a chance to explain each of their posters to the other children.

All in all this was a very successful programme. And the numbers off those attending the club have also increased.

The first session was based on Recruitment. This interactive session started with the discussion as to why this is important in our work. The workers came up with the following reasons;

1. Volunteers are the foundation of the programme

2. They are the people who will spend more time with the children

3. Security and protection of them, the children and the organization

4. It’s a means of getting to know the background of the volunteer.
   The importance of the recruitment process was highlighted over and over again to make sure that each of the workers grasped its importance fully. We went through each of the formats that they would have to use in the recruitment of the volunteers, at the same time going through the manual.

   After lunch we discussed the Peace programme / peace tool kit. Listed below in point form are the issues that were covered;

   • Why we want to have such a programme?

   1. Unify the children.

   2. Children are the best place to start.

   3. Help the children understand about other cultures and build up their knowledge other cultures.

   4. Help children build good relationships.

   5. Change the mentality

   6. Help children feel free [negative ideas of other communities tend to confuse children, especially when the ideas are contradictory. This results in children being entangled in their own confused thoughts as well as those of adults].

   7. Help children accept differences

   8. Build up a healthier future

   9. Teach adults via children
      
      

• For whom – the children of our Change Makers clubs, for schools and churches

• Timeline – plans will be complete by August whereas they can start the clubs by the beginning of September.