OSCE Mission to Serbia supports safety of schoolchildren

The OSCE Mission to Serbia, in partnership with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Education, launched the Basics of Child Safety handbook, a vital guideline for schoolchildren, teachers and parents, on 12 February 2018 in Belgrade.

The publication is an example of the long-standing and successful partnership between the OSCE and the relevant Ministries. It is a part of the Mission’s wider efforts to support the work of Serbia’s institutions in crime prevention, initiated in August 2017.

“This handbook represents an important step forward in the tackling of safety problems for young people and the suppression of all sorts of violence,” said Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia Andrea Orizio. He noted that the handbook reflects a concerted effort by a wide range of experts, educators, concerned stakeholders, and relevant institutions towards this end.

“Partnerships – within schools, with parents, municipal officials, community service providers and police – are the key,” said Orizio.

The goal of the publication is to raise awareness among primary school students on various safety issues including: traffic safety, bullying at school and drug and alcohol abuse. In addition, each section of the handbook contains emergency phone numbers for children to use if they are home alone, feel threatened, hurt themselves or are in danger.

The Ministry of Interior has targeted all primary schools in Serbia for distribution and has printed 138,000 copies of the handbook, with the Mission’s support. In January 2018, the handbook was translated into eight minority languages (Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian, Ruthenian, Slovak and Croatian) for schoolchildren of various ethnic communities across Serbia.

As a part of the OSCE Mission-supported initiative focused on prevention, once a month, fourth and sixth grade primary school students will attend classes on safety topics such as traffic safety, the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol, and the dangers of irresponsible use of the Internet and social networks. The topics of discussion with the children will also include violence as a negative social phenomenon, prevention and protection of children from trafficking in human beings, and protection from fire and other natural disasters.