Dr Zia Ul Haque
Culturally, we are not safety-conscious and do not shy away from blowing through red lights or using bare wires with high-voltage devices. Unfortunately, neither the state institutions nor the civil society make any effort to create awareness among the common people. The same holds good for the educational institutions which do not teach or train and lay emphasis on safety standards among the students in their early years of education.
The purpose of choosing this topic for this week’s article is to create awareness among Generation Z and Alpha about the significance of safety as a value to promote and practice to ensure that our future generations develop an attitude towards safety.
First and foremost is to develop an understanding about safetythat it must begin at home, and the priority must go to personal safety, perhaps in a similar way as personal security as part of the human security paradigm. If we can convince people to develop safety as a value system, it will be easy to promote it among other family members and expand it to the larger groups of the community. Once an individual develops a good understanding of the significance of personal safety, he or she will be more conscious and strive to develop a safety ecosystem of his/her own. It is necessary to begin at home to teach our children about their personal safety and about the use of electrical appliances, because that is one area that is always used by everyone. Most electrical and electronic equipment is safely protected but we need to ensure that these safety mechanisms are not bypassed for the want of our convenience.
Getting out of home, we must emphasise road safety. Walking on the correct side of the road and going through the zebra crossing only. These points may appear too basic but remain the foundation of developing a safety culture among the people. If these values are not inculcated among the children, the probability of it remaining ignored increases manifold among the grown-up people.
Once at school, the teachers must ensure that they give a safety tip of the day. It must begin with the basics like road signs and signals, use of electrical and electronic devices which the children are well familiar with due to the mushrooming of smartphones.
That brings me to the significance of technology in creating awareness about safety. Gen Z and Alpha are technology-friendly and like to take help from available applications and use them regularly in their day-to-day life. Therefore, we must encourage our children to use technology to learn about safe practices in all domains, like riding, driving, and doing things that involve using tools, so that they do not end up hurting themselves.
This brings me to highlight another area that is causing great concern, and that is the increased use of electric bikes by young children. One is amazed and equally worried when we see very young children riding these bikes on major roads and in busy areas. Unfortunately, parents do not care about the safety of their children and let them ride as if it were a toy and they will not cause any harm if an incident occurs. Likewise, driving by youngsters regularly hits the headlines whenever an accident occurs, and we find out that the driver was underage and without a valid license.
This all happens because we have not added safety to our values list or essentials during the upbringing of our children.
Another area that needs attention is the safety of construction workers. Unfortunately, our construction practices and sites do not adhere to safety standards, and poor labourers are forced to work on risky ladders and non-standard scaffoldings leading to unfortunate incidents.
Unless we insist on developing an attitude toward safety, the situation on the ground will not change. From personal safety at home, school, place of work, sports fields, and on the road, each area needs attention. Likewise, tourism safety, which is becoming another area of great concern due to changed climate and increased natural disasters in the northern areas which are popular tourist destinations, needs immediate attention. Every year, tourists end up losing lives due to unexpected floods, landslides, and careless driving by public transport.
In my opinion, a lot needs to be done by the state, civil society, and educational institutions, and that too on an emergency basis. Use technology to create awareness among the younger generation which is tech-friendly and will listen to its advice, especially for road safety and the use of electrical appliances and electronic devices.
Make safety a national value so that it is protected and promoted religiously to have a better future for generations to come.
The writer of this article has authored four international books: Nuclear Deterrence and Conflict Management Between India and Pakistan, South Asia Needs Hybrid Peace, Understanding Sun Tzu and the Art of Hybrid War, and Diplomacy and Deterrence.
