By Gayane Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow Reporter
“First of all, buildings with strong bases should be built, and one should not give way to panic”, explains 6-year-old Arman Mesropyan with wise seriousness to a grown-up audience.
Kindergarten N 39 in Yerevan has found a unique method of teaching the rules of behavior in earthquake situations to five and six year old children. Through a theatrical performance where the actors were the pupils at the kindergarten themselves the children understood all the means of protecting themselves from that kind of unexpected natural disasters.
On December 6, the eve of the 16th anniversary of the Spitak earthquake, the children presented their public-service performance on earthquake safety.
The spirit of the forest invites all the animals to a meeting and explains what to do if suddenly an earthquake happens. The sleepy bear grumbles, shrugs his shoulders and leaves; the wolf and the fox follow him.
Concerned, the spirit of the forest calls the spirit of the soil who promises to give a good lesson to the disobedient animals: “I will shake the ground a bit and let that be a punishment to those who ignore your advice”, says the spirit of soil and makes a slight quake.
The forest goes into confusion and panic starts among those who ignored the spirit of the forest’s advice; and to those who fortified the bases of their houses, nothing happened.
“I was a fool; I just understood I shouldn’t have put my bed by the window and shouldn’t have hung a painting in a big frame above my head; I am happy not to have my head injured”, grumbles the wolf, 6-year-old Mario Davtyan.
Then the ladybird explains to the frightened rabbit he should have gone under the table if he did not manage to run out of the house, or should stand by main walls. The rescuer cats and lambs tell everyone: “If you appear under the ruins you should call loudly and you can throw a stone to clang on something; if you feel thirsty find a stone and suck, that will help slake the thirst.”
These rhyming advices finish with words of hope: “If you are under ruins know and repeat all the time these words: ‘they will find me, they will save me, I just need to stand it and wait.’”
“This performance was very useful not only for children but also for parents; we learned many new things. The kids taught everyone at home”, says the mother of Tatyana Gasparyan, the actor for the spirit of soil.
The principal of the kindergarten Anahit Hakobyan says it was quite difficult to stage the performance: “After each rehersal we played relaxing games, and drew, to escape the psychological pressure on the children.”
In the end of the performance, the children from the 2-4 year old group who followed the advice of their elder friends rose on the stage and answered the questions from the grownups about the rules of earthquake behavior.
“We were useful to them with advice; this is the best way to give comprehensive knowledge to children when they comprehend those important rules through a performance” says the Director of the National Service for Seismic Security Professor Alvaro Antonyan.
The children applied their knowledge some weeks ago when false information on an expected quake was spread. Hakobyan said they took all the children out of the building; the young children stood under the multistoried building in front and the elder ones cried: “Don’t stand under the building.”
According to the press secretary of the National Service for Seismic Security Hamlet Visharyan such events should be organized in all kindergartens across the republic.
“In Japan there are many cartoons created for children with special plots that teach the rules of protection”, says Visharyan. “While watching the play I was excited to think how many lives could be saved if everyone knew about all these things 16 years ago.”
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