At the end of 2020, within the pilot project “Mine Risk Education for Ukrainian Public Schools (age 12-18) – Train the Teacher on Mine Safety” representatives of the Ukrainian Deminers Association conducted live explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) sessions for certified teachers in Dnipro, Kramatorsk and Kyiv.
During the training event, teachers were shown how to conduct EORE session for schoolchildren in the “Training for trainers” format. As a conclusion of each master class, teachers were solemnly presented with certificates, as well as the necessary handouts and teaching materials. Our partners, the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, also joined the event. In particular, representatives of the Ministry reported on the need for conducting EORE in Ukraine, provided teachers with handouts and educational literature, which were developed jointly with the Ukrainian Deminers Association.
In addition, teachers were shown videos to inform the population of Ukraine about the risks of explosives, in particular, the joint development of the Ukrainian Deminers Association with American partners and the animated video developed by the Ministry of Reintegration “Do not hurry! Attention, please!”.
During the master classes of the EORE training course Ukrainian Deminers Association received pretty good feedback from certified teachers. This result may indicate the need to continue the training course “Mine Safety” for public school in 2021.
Ukrainian Deminers Association expresses its gratitude to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine for assistance.
We hope an organization of an effective systematic training for teachers on mine safety will significantly increase safety level among children through their greater awareness of threats and conscious change of behavior to safe. And these are our children’s lives and health saved!
The implementation of the UDA’s project became possible thanks to the financial support of the United States of America, with the participation of the U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine and U.S. Department of State.