More than 200 housewives, living in the poorest areas of Cairo, have participated to 4 training days organized by the Egyptian Civil Protection and increased their awareness and understanding about house risks that lead to accidents,  how to respond to emergencies and how to prevent health risks  they and their children face in the daily life.

Hanan Salama, a housewife from Kalaat EL Kapsh says, "Having learnt from one of my relatives about the awareness activity held earlier in Zeinhum Area, and how she learnt about correct practices at home, I was eager to participate and learn from such helpful activity. After  this training day, when I went back  home I decided to l change too many wrong habits I had before and  to l teach my three children, particularly my daughter Noor how to be careful while using kitchen equipment and electricity as well. I will also talk to my relatives and neighbours about my experience today."

During the four workshops for housewives - held in Zeinhum, Kalaat El Kapsh and Misr Al Kadima areas in Cairo in collaboration with the Egyptian Red Crescent and supported by the EU-funded PPRD South Programme - with a large diversity of backgrounds and age ranging from 18 to 70 years, housewives showed great interest and were quite interactive with the Civil Protection officers.

"Building upon the experience gained during the first workshops for housewives, we are now improving more and more and are giving them basic and essential information about different hazards, whether at home or in the surrounding environment, with relation to different causes, like electricity, chemicals, gas or other. With the aim to better enhance the quality of our workshops we added practical exercises and let the housewives themselves experience the correct and the wrong practices, says Lt. Col. Sameh Basseem, from the Egyptian Civil Protection and coordinator of the project. If they see in practice how to secure the home against all types of risks, they will surely be convinced about the best methodology to follow.

Adding to the agenda an open discussion between the housewives and the civil protection officers was a real successful idea. “It helps us explore the real subjects we have to focus on during present and future activities", states Lt. Col. Sameh Bassem.

Within the same project just carried out, and with the same aim to increase awareness, the Egyptian Civil Protection has organized further six campaigns in schools, in the same Cairo districts, reaching 1,800 students. In each school the main items concerning health risks, risks of accidents but also risks of disasters such as collapses of buildings and earthquakes were introduced and discussed. The campaign aimed at enabling students to protect themselves from and deal with the consequences of such risks.