Civil Protection Department

IX National day of safety in schools

The ninth edition of the national day of safety in schools is being held today. The important initiative is organized annually to promote a culture of safety through simulations of evacuation, events and discussions.

The initiative is part of the "Impararesicuri" awareness campaign, promoted by Cittadinanzattiva in collaboration with the Civil Protection Department to teach how to deal with risks on the territory, abouve all the seismic risk.

This morning in Lamezia Terme, province of Cosenza, the result of the third survey “Seismic risk knowledge and perception” were presented. The survey was carried out thanks to questionnaires filled in by 1,211 primary school students, 1,160 of junior high school and high school and 1,477 parents. Seventeen Regions and 50 Provinces were involved. The presentation was held on the Council Room of Corso Numistrano, whereas in the entire Calabria Region varoius initiatives are ongoing to make people aware and diffuse a civil protection culture among young people, as part of the national simulation exercise of civil protection called Calabria 2011.

The Head of the Civil Protection Department, Franco Gabrielli, who took part to the event, underlined that a single citizen with his behaviour can make a difference. This is way we talk of 'cittadinanza attiva - active citizens'. An aware citizen, in fact, is able to collect information and become actor, in first person, of his own safety.

Below some results of the third survery called "Seismic risk knowledge and perception", whose text is attached in full.

Some results of the survey
About one third of the interviewed studens and the 61% of the parents experiences an earthquake. Fear was the emotion most felt by parents (54%) as well as students (40% of primary schools and 31% of high schools). The concern of a collapse arise not only following past earthquakes, starting from the one in L'Aquila of 2009, but also from the low trust that people have in the buildings they live in (only 45% of the interviewed). Students aren't at all certain of the safety of their school buildings: only the 29% of the older students and and the 41% of the youngest ones have no doubt about it. Over the 70% ignores which seismic area their municipalitiy belongs to, and whether there is an Emergency Plan.

42% of parents, even more than their children (around 37%) deems an earthquake a casual event. Slighlty more that one in three students – correctly – thinks that it is not possibile to predict when and where an earthquake might occur, but determine only the seismicity degree of a given area. Young people know which behaviours to follow during an earthquake: about the 90% of those who filled in our questionnaire would take shelter under a desk or a doorway; the 84% of parents would adopt the same behaviour.

On average, people are quite informed on what the Civil Protection does, due also to the fact that the Department's functions are indicated each time an emergency plan in carried out, such as creating reception camps or setting up tents: the 88% of parents knows that, along with the 67% of younger students and the 74% of the older ones. But many of them still think that the first responsible person of civil protection is the Head of the Civil Protection Department: the 73% of parents, 57% of younger students and 62% of the older ones. Only the 15% of parents, 26% of primary school students, and 16% of high school students know that the mayor is the territorial civil protection authority to refer to.