Qatar Red Crescent Society’s (QRCS) medical affair sector yesterday trained dozens of children on how to apply first aid to mark World First Aid Day at Katara – the Cultural Village’s Childhood Cultural Centre (CCC).
The event, observed by the international community under the theme “First Aid for and by the Children,” was attended by 50 students and 10 teachers from Al Duhail and Al Rashad Primary Schools, as well as some employees of CCC.
QRCS’s instructional team included Dr Ahmed Idlibi, head of health education; and Dr Walaa Nabil, a first-aid trainer and training co-ordinator.
The event aims to promote QRCS’s image as a community development and health education provider, as well as to raise awareness about how to help injured people, particularly children.
QRCS seeks to invest in children’s ability to apply first aid for their own benefit and their peers in the future, and to inspire adults from different walks of life. The training is in line with QRCS’s strategy of making first aid a general practice “by everyone and for everyone.’
In the first part of the session, children received a lecture on the basics of first aid, which aims to save lives and control complications. It include dialling the emergency number properly to ensure quick arrival of medics; helping cases of fainting, suffocation, wound, burn, fracture, and nosebleed; prevention of road accidents; first aid for facial and jaw injuries; and first-aid kit.
The session’s second part involved a practical demonstration of how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); emergency number dialling; and mutual first aid for suffocation, choking, and nosebleed. The students were also trained in the content and use of first-aid kit.
Instructional first aid printouts, first-aid kits, and gifts were handed over to the students.
World First Aid Day is a global observance instituted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in 2000 and has been celebrated annually ever since.
The celebration aims to raise awareness of how first aid can prevent injuries and save lives every day and in crisis situations, as well as to promote the accessibility of first aid.