Professionals show Verdala students how to stay safe

A Health and Safety awareness campaign was organised at Guzeppi Despott Boys Junior Lyceum, Verdala, Cospicua, during the past scholastic year. Professional groups from several entities were invited to our school to give demonstrations and deliver talks and PowerPoint presentations on health and safety topics.

Our aim was to make the students feel safer in the environment around them and to organise something different from the norm at our school. The students really appreciated the initiative and some even took part in demonstrations that were held during this campaign.

Anthony Pisani, Operations Manager (Education and Training) at the Civil Protection Department, came with his professional team and demonstrated how to extinguish different types of fires. As part of the demonstration the team lit various fires and some students used various fire extinguishers on them.

A group of police officers from the Dog Section brought along their dogs and showed how the dogs react during drugs-related searches and operations against other illegal activities. The students were fascinated to see the dogs' capabilities. In another talk, a traffic police sergeant spoke about safety on the roads.

Anthony Caruana Spearing from the Malta Maritime Authority delivered a presentation about safety at sea and showed the students the different types of safety equipment that one should use in case of an emergency while at sea.

Joe Saliba, head of safety at the Malta Drydocks, assisted by Eugenio Busuttil, an electronics services manager at the Drydocks, gave a PowerPoint presentation about excessive noise levels that could cause hearing loss and what we can do to prevent it.

A member from the St John Rescue Corps gave a fascinating PowerPoint presentation about basic first aid.

On the campaign's last day the students were treated to a 'Healthy Breakfast' consisting of muesli with yoghurt or milk, fruit and orange juice.

The campaign was organised in conjunction with our Comenius project "My school is my castle: Myth or Reality?" by the Comenius team, which consists of myself and Marita Xerri, with the support of Rennie Delceppo from the Health and Safety team.

Thanks are due for whole-hearted joint effort of all the teachers, parents and students who spent their free time preparing this healthy breakfast.

I would also like to sincerely thank our acting head of school, Mr Sultana, who gave us all his support in this campaign, as well as all the staff and sponsors whose help contributed in some way or another to make this campaign a complete success.