Water, food, cat litter? In Twente, children learn for themselves what should be in the emergency kit. ‘I told you, no coke’

Suddenly the lights flash. The excitement grows, cheeks turn red. Marion Zuidinga, former firefighter, lights electric candles. She has just asked the group of students from De Leemstee primary school in Oldenzaal who has an emergency kit at home. Four of the eight fingers went up.

Now the eleven and twelve year olds have to search in the recreated kitchen in a huge warehouse at Twente Airport for what they need for such a package. Water and food, matches, a first aid kit? Is cat litter included or not? In the dark, with only the light of the candles and the flashlight, which Nola is especially not allowed to point at the faces of the others.

Rocks searches for the emergency channel Radio Oost on a battery-powered radio, on frequency 89.4. “You can turn that knob,” says Zuidinga. “And then raise the antenna.”

At the end of last year, everyone in the Netherlands received the purple booklet “Think Forward” from the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security. It states what residents should do in the event of a crisis and how they can get through three days without power. Municipalities and safety regions everywhere, which are responsible for disaster response, crisis management and the fire brigade, have since been thinking about how this purple book should be followed up. How they can make people resilient and self-reliant.

Reacting a crisis increases awareness

The Twente Safety Region, says Stefan Mués, has been working on this for much longer. Not by preparing adults for emergency situations, but children. He is a project leader at Risk Factory, a collaboration between the safety region, fire brigade, police, GGD Twente and a number of other public and private parties. Since 2014, students from group 8 and the second year of secondary education have been learning, following the Scottish example, what they can do themselves in an emergency.

They learn this by reenacting and experiencing crises. The warehouse at the airport consists of a mini village where a scooter accident, a burglary and a house fire take place, where the students are offered money and drugs and learn how easily you can buy followers on social media and fool others.

The entire building is one big message about safety in the broadest sense of the word. There are posters from the Vechtstromen Water Board on the toilet doors with the message that you should not flush frying fat. In the reception area, next to the coat hooks, hang the Rights of the Child, with the Unicef ​​logo. Later, when it is sunnier, sunscreen will be distributed in collaboration with the Skin Fund.

Mués proudly says that 92 percent of Twente’s primary schools have already visited this school year or have booked for the coming months, and of the three thousand secondary school students, 82 percent have already been there as primary school pupils. The Risk Factory now also has branches in the safety regions of Zeeland, Central and West Brabant and Limburg North, and thus reaches seventeen thousand primary school students. A Risk Factory will open this year in South Holland South and Limburg South. The safety regions bear the costs, the schools only pay a contribution for transport to the location.

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Out PhD research from Radboud University to the Risk Factory, it appears that transferring knowledge through a classroom lesson alone is “not sufficient to prevent risky behavior.” The experience makes children more aware of risks and they “actually behave more safely.”

That is also what teacher Nick Hagedoorn from De Leemstee suspects: “They will remember this. This was really perfect, in terms of technology and content it grabs them. You cannot offer the physical at school, and the online safety built on the digital literacy that we teach at school.”

Talk about emergency kit while eating

The Twente Safety Region then hopes to reach parents, grandparents and neighbors through the students, says project leader Mués. In behavioral science this is called ‘nudging’, motivating people. Judith Buitenhuis of the Twente Safety Region says: “Residents also want to help and that starts by being prepared themselves. Also as a family.”

A number of times this morning, the students of De Leemstee are also explicitly asked to ask “at dinner tonight” what, for example, the meeting place is in the event of a fire, whether there is a carbon monoxide detector at home, and where the items for the emergency kit are located. At the end they also receive an emergency kit checklist to complete at home and discuss later at school. When asked what they thought of the Risk Factory, Figgo says: “I have to discuss everything with my parents later.”

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The scene with the power outage was added in mid-November, when the purple book came out. In the kitchen, the eight students must choose what is needed to survive for three days. Blankets? “Yes, because the heating is out!” Gingerbread? “We have to eat.” Long life milk and cola? In response, the shelf in the utility room turns orange instead of green. Orange items are nice to have, like games and cat litter, but not necessary, like water. “Didn’t I say we didn’t need a Coke?”

Self-reliance consists of more. In this way, students also learn to call 112. “Never for fun,” says Marion Zuidinga, while she tells the group that when she worked in the control room, people sometimes called for fun to order a pizza: “Then the line is busy for people who really want to report an emergency.”

On a screen they see how a car hits a cyclist. Nola is allowed to call 112 – elsewhere in the warehouse a former police officer takes the call, so that the control room protocol can be reenacted as realistically as possible. Zuidinga: “Speak clearly and calmly. Where are you? Do you see a house number?”

The scene continues, ambulance and police arrive: a girl their age tries to crawl under the red barrier tape for a ‘fun’ video for her friends. Not okay, Emer and Noah immediately say.

Fire caused by cell phone under the pillow

It continues, including to a recreated living room full of fire hazards, such as a wobbly iron, a mess of cords and candles next to the curtains. In the kitchen, a pot holder hangs almost in the gas burner, the meter cupboard is stuffed with coats, and carbon monoxide poisoning appears to be imminent.

Benthe says that they have a carbon monoxide detector at home: “In the storage room.” The others? They hesitate. Former firefighter Zuidinga says: “You will be very busy at dinner tonight with questions.” She pulls back a curtain to reveal the skeleton of a chair and a burnt lamp. Exactly the same ones in the living room. “After five minutes you are already in this situation.”

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The bedroom makes an even more impressive impression. It is smoldering under the warm laptop on the duvet. There is a burn hole in the pillow from a cell phone that was not charged with the original cord. Rocks is shocked: “I have a break in my cord.” It turns out that this was also purchased at a bargain chain. Zuidinga says that half of all fires are caused at night by charging electronics.

Then the smoke alarm goes off. The living room already looks gray. Nynke pulls her shirt over her mouth, everyone bends down as low as possible. Once ‘outside’, Noor calls 112. “The fire brigade is happy.”

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