Why are first aid skills essential for survival?
First aid is the basic, urgent, and immediate care provided to individuals suffering from injuries or illnesses until they can receive professional medical treatment.
First aid is an essential life skill. Accidents and illnesses can happen anywhere—at home, at work, in public places, and often when we least expect them. Being skilled in first aid enables you to identify signs of injury and illness, equips you to respond effectively to emergencies, and provides critical support to yourself and others, protecting health and saving lives.
However, in Vietnam, first aid knowledge and practices are not widely taught or instructed. Currently, this essential life skill is only mandatory in some large enterprises operating in high-risk health sectors. Most victims do not receive first aid or proper first aid before being taken to the hospital, leading to high mortality rates, causing significant pain, loss, and burden for families and society.
According to the Ministry of Health, injuries, especially traffic accidents, pose a major public health challenge in Vietnam, with high rates of injury and mortality compared to infectious and non-communicable diseases. Traffic accidents and drowning are the leading causes of death.
What types of injury do visually- impaired children often encounter?
People with disabilities, especially visually impaired children, face numerous injury risks. They are particularly disadvantaged due to the lack of first aid and injury prevention educational materials in braille and audiobooks. When accidents occur, visually impaired individuals have more difficulty calling for help, and the situation becomes more critical if teachers and caregivers lack first aid skills to provide timely assistance.
Visually impaired children cannot accurately conceptualize, recognize, and remember everything around them. Teachers must adapt regular lessons that use visual aids into lessons that engage other senses, such as touch (using braille) and hearing (using audiobooks). This teaching and learning process requires patience and perseverance, as visually impaired children may learn at a slower pace compared to their peers.
Special needs schools are dedicated to educating and caring for children with multiple disabilities including visually impaired children. After conducting a survey and piloting a first aid training program for some teachers at Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Special Needs School, it became clear that these skills are crucial for both teachers and students to prevent risks and reduce injuries in accident situations. Additionally, providing educational materials in braille and audiobooks is vital for sharing this knowledge with visually impaired students.
Project “Providing First-aid Educational Materials for Visually Impaired Children”: Enhancing injury prevention and self-protection skills for visually impaired children.
An initiative aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being, the “First Aid Education Materials for Visually Impaired Children” project is a joint collaboration between Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Special Needs School, Survival Skills Vietnam (SSVN), and ASIF Foundation. This initiative continues ASIF Foundation’s commitment to supporting vulnerable children, following a partnering initiative with the Center for Health Research and Innovation (CHIR) to deliver community development projects to 17 SOS Children’s Villages across 17 provinces and cities nationwide.
In this project, ASIF Foundation is honored to collaborate with Survival Skills Vietnam (SSVN) . With the mission to reduce preventable casualties in Vietnam through international standard first aid education, Survival Skills Vietnam started as a non-profit project and has transformed into a social enterprise. SSVN continuously modernizes its activities to help thousands of Vietnamese people access accurate first-aid knowledge and skills, thereby preventing unnecessary casualties.
The project utilizes new technologies such as artificial intelligence and existing technologies from SSVN to distribute audiobooks, reducing production costs while enhancing the learning and practice quality for sighted teachers.
The project consists of three components:
Training for care-givers: Equip caregivers with essential first aid skills to handle common accidents, enhancing school safety and ensuring timely support during health emergencies.
Providing Braille First Aid Handbook: First aid handbook is converted into Braille materials and distributed to libraries at institutions, healthcare centers, and shelters to serve the visually impaired nationwide.
First Aid Audiobook: The first aid audiobook is available for online streaming on various podcast services and online libraries for the visually impaired.
ASIF Foundation hopes that this project will provide students at Nguyễn Đình Chiểu Special Needs School, their teachers, parents, and the broader community of visually impaired schools with practical tools to enhance injury prevention awareness. This initiative aims to foster a safe lifestyle, empower individuals to protect themselves, and ensure they can safely administer first aid to others in need.
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