A girl tries to identify potential dangers in a kitchen during a safety lecture in Shanghai. (ZHOU WENTING/CHINA DAILY)
Physicians and NGO help children to identify and deal with hazards at home and in the community.
As she delivered a lecture to a group of school students at a hospital in Shanghai, Zheng Jicui, a pediatrician who specializes in trauma treatment, posed a question.
"Have any of you ever bumped into something by accident and been injured?" she asked the group, ages 7 to 14.
Zhou Qile, an 8-year-old boy, responded quickly: "I once stumbled over a scooter placed in the middle of the room at home. I fell and bumped my head."
Other children recalled how they had fallen off chairs when climbing up to grab food or toys that were out of reach, had been scalded by mugs of hot water left on tables, or hurt when other children had carelessly hit them in the eye with chopsticks.
According to pediatricians, a lack of safety education is a main reason that accidents such as these occur to children in China.
That is why the Children's Hospital at Fudan University in Shanghai is offering a series of classes for school students during the summer vacation for the second year running.
The eight lectures focus on different topics－such as safe swimming and identifying foods that can potentially trigger allergic reactions or breathing problems.
They have been arranged by the hospital and the China branch of the NGO Safe Kids Worldwide to alert children to the dangers that may lurk in seemingly commonplace activities.
