How a social media campaign can help save lives

As many of you may already know, a group of emergency services professionals have started a campaign to include civil protection education in schools here in Spain, with the ultimate goal of saving lives. The opportunity arose when our new Education Minister José Ignacio Wert , @Jiwert, announced that it was his intention to introduce some changes in a school subject called Civil Education. To this end, we have created the hastag #EdCivEmerg, where you can follow all the information related to this topic. 

It all started last week when Luis Serrano @LuisSerranoR posted a tweet  to the Education Minister asking him whether he would consider adding civil protection and first aid contents to this subject. The Minister replied that he liked the idea.  Following this, the idea was endorsed by Government Adviser, Cristina Cifuentes (@ccifuentes), the Presidency Adviser Regina Plañol (@reginaplanol), as well as some NGOs, such as the Spanish Red Cross, (@CruzRojaEsp), the Spanish Association Against Fire (ASELF), (@ASELFcomunica), the  Spanish Society of Cardiology @secardiologia, and many other organizations and citizens connected to Civil Protection.

PSAPs support

Last Tuesday, 7th February, the campaign received a great boost when all the directors of Civil Protection, and the Director of PSAP, decided to publicly endorse our proposal. I’d like to give my special thanks to @javierromaguera,  Director of 112 service in the Spanish city of Ceuta (situated in North Africa), who has backed  this initiative from the very beginning, and has introduced it to their fellow colleagues.

Social Media Back-up

As you can see, following the hastag #EdCivEmerg, hundreds of citizens are signing up to the manifesto, named ‘Civic Education and Emergencies’.

We could not have been able to obtain support from such a great number of people without the social media, including traditional media through their twitter accounts. 

European 112 day

February 11 is European 112 day. A great chance to spread the word. Help us reach  Emergency Services, once and for all, through a single phone number,  and help us save lives by training children on First Aid and Civil Defense at school.

All the members of #EdCivEmerg team , @Alfredo_112,  @pelluzo,  @CarlosMatabuena, . @danielortiz1984,  @fernanlopezmesa, . @FonsecaFj, . @igonzalezh,  @tango_alfa2, @jvarela, @Jorgeizdo, 

@ChemaCepeda,  @jldecastellvi, . @LuisSerranoR,  @marcoseguillor, @jesterhanny,  @PaolaGonzalezH,  @mrsrosaperez and myself @marialuisamoreo, an many more,  are doing our best to have our children prepared in the case of an emergency, as they are in the U.S.A, Japan, or Northern Europe, to quote a few examples. Our goal is to save lives, and that, in our opinion, should be taught at school, on a regular basis, so that citizens are able to cope in an emergency situation. 

Don’t you agree?

If you would like to sign up to our campaign, you can do so on our website www.edciviemerg.com. Here you can also read the many interviews we carried since last week.