Child minders acquire first aid skills |17 September 2013

A group of child minders are now equipped with first aid skills following a one-day workshop on the subject organised by the Red Cross Society of Seychelles to mark International First Aid Day.
 
Conducted by Red Cross volunteers at the society’s headquarters at Providence on Saturday, the workshop was attended by a group of thirty three child minders from all over Mahé.

According to the Red Cross, the organisation had identified the need for the training as child minders must possess the necessary tools to ensure the children’s good health when in their care.
This was also expressed by one of the participants, Diana Aglaé of Belonie:

“As I mind five children, if anything happens to one child I will from now on be able to intervene and offer basic medical assistance before, for example, taking a child to hospital. I will now also be able to deal with minor accidents. We must realise that child minding is very important and has to be administered in the right way because we are dealing with the most important years in a child’s development. The workshop has been interesting and useful. As child minders we also welcome other new initiatives put in place by government with regard to our trade.”

During the workshop, the child minders learned how to treat conditions such as wounds and bleeding, chocking, burns, electric shock, poisoning, drowning, asthma, stroke and heart attack, fracture and dislocation, head and spinal injury, epilepsy, and also how to apply cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Other activities to mark First Aid Day were organised on Friday. These included presentation of certificates to eighteen new first aid instructors and fifteen others who had recently followed a refresher course, as well as a donation of first aid material to the Seychelles Red Cross by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha).