Teaching first aid to children in Egypte

1. PROBLEM STATEMENT

The simple knowledge of basic first aid can mean the difference between life and death and can massively improve the chances of someone’s recovery, the amount of pain they are in and how long they are to be hospitalized. Immediate and quick first aid can increase the chances and the rate of someone’s recovery and sometimes completely dismisses the need for medical intervention.

We can say that first aid knowledge is a must in many cases and especially in Egypt, for people working in dangerous environments such as a factory or a construction site, for people practicing sports, for people living with others with mental or physical disabilities or children, in emergencies; such as a heart attack, a stroke or vehicle accidents.

By definition, “Basic First Aid knowledge is comprised of relatively simple techniques and procedures that can be performed with limited equipment and is typically carried out until professional medical assistance arrives.”

The training courses of first aid at the Egyptian Red Crescent (Our partner) include the following topics:

Heart attack, airway obstruction, Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), AED, drowning, bleeding, burns, fractures, abdomen, chest, and eye injuries, shock, fainting and coma, convulsions, poisoning, diarrhea, bites and stings, exposure to extreme temperatures, Triage, prevention of children injuries.

The course’s normal fees

At the Egyptian Red Crescent, the course’s fees are 400 Egyptian pounds for every attendee

b. Common first aid mistakes

 Through this project, we also aim to adjust some common first aid mistakes made on a daily basis in our lives that can even worsen the situation and leads to an injury such as:

• Leaning back with a bloody nose instead of leaning the head forward
• Sticking ice straight on the skin on a bruise while it should have a thin barrier between the ice and the skin
• Applying heat to a sprain instead of applying a cold compress
• Giving caffeine to someone who has fainted while the most important is to raise their leg up
• Trying to stop the flow of blood to an injured limb can hurt more than it helps
• Giving mouth to mouth after a heart attack, in 2008 the CPR recommendations were updated, advising to apply “Hands-Only” CPR

1. Home & work accidents

Not only people in direct contact with individuals who in most cases will need first aid treatment should be trained, parents for example and maybe teachers who educate and watch over children ideally should be able to perform First Aid. As our target audience is the future parents and maybe are actually young parents, they need to have some basics about first aid.

Through our research, we’ve found a study that was conducted by the faculty of nursing in Asyut University on a sample of 600 mothers having children less than  

While a certified individual instructor, his fees can be up to 2000 Egyptian pounds per session.

Our uniqueness relies in raising the first aid’s awareness in Cairo which is not a very attractive topic for Egyptians; as it is really rare that someone pay money for taking such a course; however it is a must in many other countries, so we are going to provide a free session for the target audience that we chose. From another perspective, contributing in encouraging young people to contribute in serving their community so here came the idea of not contacting just a normal individual instructor but searching an entity who already provides volunteering services and in constant need of people who are willing to be a part of their volunteer’s team.

Here are the facts and evidences highlighting the importance of our project.

1. The emergency services in Egypt

Unfortunately , Egypt suffers from some poor emergency services; as it was hard to find information from a trusted source about the average time it takes for an ambulance to reach the patient, we’ve found on a site named “Just landed” that provides advices for people travelling to other countries based on previous experiences, that it is advised in the “Egypt Guide” to do a medical check before coming to Egypt in order to avoid calling the ambulance in case of emergencies because someone may be present in a rural area where the ambulance service will be unavailable or the ambulance will take hours to arrive due to the usual traffic in Egypt.

While an ambulance should arrive after 8 minutes of the call in the life threatening cases and it can take up to 19 minutes in other less severe cases. In Egypt, due to traffic and many other factors, lives could be easily lost; for instance, heart attack victims or ones who have trouble breathing suddenly, life supporting help must be present within short minutes to secure a continuing life for this patient. According to studies, after 10 minutes of non-attempting CPR to a person having a cardiac arrest the chance of survival decreases to 2%... So imagine how it would be if cases like this call for help from an ambulance and it takes more than an hour to reach the patient.

6 years where most of them were aged from 25 to less than 35 year.

It has concluded that the majority of mothers (93.2%) would go to health facilities in case of home accidents because they do not know how to deal with such incidents.

According to CAPMAS, there are 17,182 work-related injuries in Egypt in 2011 out of a total active labor force of some 23.3 million workers that year.