World Hand Hygiene Day
Health Awareness and book launch of When I grow up - I want to be a Paramedic
Buk bilong Pikinini (BbP), St John Ambulance and the Sir Brian Bell Foundation has today celebrated World Hand Hygiene Day, which aims to focus on hand hygiene in health care and bring people together in support of hand hygiene improvement around the world.
The event was held at BbP’s Tatana Library Learning Centre and included the launch of ‘When I grow up I want to be a Paramedic’, a hand hygiene awareness session and a guided visit to an ambulance from the St Johns Ambulance fleet.
“When I grow up - I want to be a Paramedic” is among a series of small readers showcasing 13 professions published by BbP. The books (readers) seek to teach the children about the importance of education and helps to provide information about different professions they can aspire to.
In the book, 5-year-old Flimsep Flim, who was a student with BbP in 2020, got the opportunity to visit the St John Ambulance HQ, wear the full SJA professional uniform and learn from Paramedic role models. The reader features images of Flimsep in action, medical and ambulance equipment and what you need to learn about the vital life-saving work being carried out by St. John Ambulance Paramedics in the community. Flimsep today returned to help launch the reader together with the St Johns Ambulance team, the 2022 BbP student cohort and Tatana Island community.
Targeting children in the 4-8 age group, the language is simple with large text type with ample visual clues inserted for more difficult words.
The other readers in the series are entitled “When I Grow up – I want to be a Teacher, - Pilot(PNG Air), - Store Manager (Brian Bell), - ICT Officer (Niunet) and – Farmer (Ilimo/9 Mile Farm) in launched 2021 and Engineer (EMPNG), - Pastry Chef (Airways Hotel), Heavy Equipment Operator (Hastings Deering), Pharmacist/Nurse (CPL), Architect (Pacific Palms Property) and Banker (BSP) will all be launched during Book Week in August 2022.
The readers have been created and scripted by BbP, with photography by Roan Paul, generous printing and shipping sponsorship for the entire series by the Sir Brian Bell Foundation and editing support from Wild Dog books.
Leanne Resson, BbP Executive Officer said: We are grateful for our partners support to produce these readers and are confident that they will inspire the children to want to pursue careers in professions on offer at PNG companies. By seeing role models in action, the children will be able to understand that they too can aim for such careers despite coming from a remote village or urban settlement.”
Anne-Sophie Hermann, BbP Founder and Chair said: “Motivating children from a young age to pursue careers in fields that are unfamiliar to them can be a hard task. Understanding why you need an education is important when times are tough and you feel like giving up. At BbP, we are incredibly thankful to our donor partners for their amazing support to assist us with guiding the children towards vital careers for the country. We are looking forward to be creating more readers in more professions thanks to the generous support from the Sir Brian Bell Foundation, Roan Paul, Wild Dog Books, our professional partners and role models and of course our very special young children featured in the readers.”
