Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) will be holding the second version of its Safe School programme for the academic year 2015-2016 aimed at educating students and staff on how to deal with earthquakes.
At the first semester this academic year, the programme served 10,304 trainees from 18 schools, including 8,565 students of different stages of education and 1,739 teachers, administrative staff, and supervisors.
The number of beneficiaries from 2013 to 2015 totalled 29,022 people from 49 schools across the country.
QRCS is planning to expand the programme’s scope to cover more schools as part of its capacity building for communities in the field of preparedness.
Funded and implemented by QRCS in co-ordination with the management of host schools, the programme is conducted every Sunday at different Supreme Education Council schools, applying an all-day theoretical and practical training scheme with two breaks.
By the end of the day, a simulated evacuation scenario is implemented by all students, teachers, and administrative staff, who assemble at the predefined assembly points under the supervision of QRCS Risk Reduction Team members.
The programme aims to promote a culture of safe behaviour and societal risk management to prevent, reduce, or properly deal with risks by developing practical experience and skills among youngsters.
The training teaches them general concepts of disaster risk reduction and letting them practice emergency plans and evacuation rules very seriously as if they were facing a real disaster.
“This will help produce a whole generation of Qataris who have the highest level of disaster preparedness,” QRCS said in a statement.