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Marvelous M Saidi
On Tuesday July 7 2015 at exactly 10:30 am a distinct sound which was immediately recognised by all the students as that of a siren was heard. Suddenly all the students in all the classes hurriedly got out of their classrooms. Students could be seen briskly making their way to the assembly point. Teachers had by now found their way to the assembly point holding their class registers ready to make a roll call.
My group – the First Aiders, could be spotted standing separate from the rest of the students body awaiting instructions.
“What a beautiful scene this is,” I thought to myself as I viewed the events in anticipation.
“This is an alert drill,” announced school Disaster and Risk Management club (DRM) teacher Miss Tafirenyika as she addressed the students and teachers.
“Where is the disaster?” shouted one naughty student.
Bursts of laughter rocked the assembly point.
Miss Tafirenyika, quite unperturbed by the student’s remarks, went on to explain that such drills were important in preparing for disasters which usually come without warning.
She went on to explain that such drills were going to be repeated as often as possible until everyone got used to them.
Students were then ordered to return to their classes.
The drills have been introduced by the DRM which is sponsored by Plan International.
A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community/society causing major human, material and environmental losses.
So people, including students, need to be prepared for such events.
Whenever something new is introduced there is bound to be a lot of comments and even resistance as each person tries to make sense of the new phenomenon.
The general complaints from both teachers and students at my school has been that of time wastage and lesson disruption.
Others even went on to question the relevance of the drills given that here in Zimbabwe our schools have few records of disasters compared to other regions.
At schools there are many hazards which include fire outbreaks, snake bites, drowning and lightning strikes
Uuum . . . the need for disaster preparedness will never be apparent until an actual disaster happens. Besides preparing students for disaster the drills are a good way of teaching us to simply obey instructions.
◆ A Form 4A Student at Chindenga Secondary School, Mutoko
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