Fire Agency Publishes Customized Textbooks for Safety-Vulnerable Groups Including Elderly and Disabled

Publication of Textbooks and Instructor Manuals Reflecting Characteristics by Disability Type

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] The National Fire Agency announced on the 10th that it has published fire safety education materials reflecting the opinions of frontline fire safety instructors and disability experts to strengthen fire safety education for vulnerable groups such as the elderly, disabled, and multicultural families.

This material incorporates the results of literature analysis, surveys and interviews, and expert consultations regarding the elderly, disabled (physical, visual, hearing), and multicultural families (foreign residents in Korea), analyzing accident cases and statistics by target group, physical, cognitive, and environmental characteristics, as well as domestic and international education trends.

The main contents are organized into four major areas: ▲fire safety ▲daily life safety ▲first aid ▲disaster safety, and a teacher’s guide including domestic and international accident cases and related statistics for each field was also published.

The elderly edition was designed to enhance understanding for older adults by not only increasing font size for users with low vision but also adding photo materials and comic-style illustrations. The disabled edition was produced targeting physical, visual, and hearing disabilities based on their distribution ratio and reflecting characteristics by type.

The physical disability edition uses illustrations to stimulate interest and improve concentration during education, the visual disability edition is composed in braille format, and the hearing disability edition is designed as an e-book utilizing photos and images to enhance user comprehension.

The multicultural family edition was produced in six languages, including Chinese, which is widely used, considering communication difficulties due to language barriers. It consists of 119 emergency reporting, fire evacuation procedures, fire extinguisher usage, first aid and CPR techniques by situation, and especially reflects the characteristics of multicultural family members by including industrial safety for foreign workers.

Hwang Gi-seok, Director of Fire Prevention at the National Fire Agency, stated, “Customized materials are essential to enhance the effectiveness of fire safety education,” and added, “We will continue to actively reflect the opinions of frontline instructors and experts to strengthen safety education for vulnerable groups and gradually produce and distribute standard materials.”