Dubai: Over 1,000 parents received a home safety kit when they visited the Dubai Municipality’s booth set up at Citywalk and municipality centres since November to raise awareness of home safety. The kit included table corner protectors, fire blanket, door safety shield and a home safety booklet among others.
“We made the booklet interesting by telling stories to give examples of safety risks and their prevention. For each awareness point we have made stories to make people read it and make it more interesting for children. By seeing the illustration and reading the story, people can understand these matters faster and they will remember them for long,” said Dr Maryam Mahmoud Bin Eisa, head of the awareness team at the Dubai Municipality Health and Safety Department.
Similar stories were produced in animated videos and promoted through social media channels of the civic body. Among the instructions and guidelines, officials also called for constant adult supervision in play areas without any distraction to prevent accidental injuries.
All the publications and releases produced related to the campaign were also distributed to all municipality employees as well as 130,000 registered users by email.
After visiting the municipality booth, a whopping 93 per cent of the participants in the first phase of the campaign said that their level of awareness about home safety increased after taking part in it. As gauged by officials earlier, 72 per cent of the participants also admitted that they were not aware of many of the dangers lurking in their homes in detail.
That means they did not know the safety risks lurking in at least some of the following things at home — stairs, windows and balcony doors, bathtub, medicines, household chemicals and detergents, stove, dangerous household utensils, bookshelves, power outlets and electric cords, hot water, toys, drapes and candy and snacks.
“We understood that people make a lot of mistakes and are still not careful about some aspects of safety at home. For example, most people do not wear gloves and face masks while using or mixing household detergents and disinfectants.
“Most moms are careful about keeping medicines away from children. But several keep their creams and make-up items in places reachable by children,” said Dr. Maryam.
Useful information like this and much more was dealt in depth during the awareness sessions in the campaign.
Dr. Maryam feels there is a bonus result to the campaign. Through the initiative, officials could promote the targets of the Year of Reading last year and the Year of Giving this year. Happiness and innovation — two other key elements of the government’s strategies — could also be incorporated in the campaign.
In the next phase, the Safe Home Booth will visit schools.
“The entire installation will be shifted to schools. The booth will be kept in each participating school for five days and we will take each class to visit the awareness house. Besides that, we have prepared some special awareness stories for students. This is expected to spread the message among children and indirectly they can take home the message too,” said Dr. Maryam.
Exhibitions in malls, government offices and other public places are also planned in the upcoming phases of the campaign.
