First Aid Awareness events in 8 countries

On September 27 2016, young people from Samaritan organisations all over Europe took to the streets to raise awareness for the importance of first aid training, particularly among young people.

The first aid awareness events and flash mobs were the third consecutive instance of this annual event. First aid is an important common denominator in the activities of all SAM.I. member organisations. All of them are convinced that first aid can and should be taught early on, not only in their own youth organisations but also in schools.

In 2016, 9 SAM.I. organisations from 8 countries used the events to draw attention to the fact that first aid is easy to learn, yet potentially live-saving. There was one event each in Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia. The Samaritans from Italy, Lithuania and Romania even employed several of their branches and thus held multiple events in their countries. The exact concept for the events was once again left up to the organisations, who again showed a broad and creative variety – from public dance performances to social experiments on the willingness to act in an emergency.

To show that the European Samaritans are united in the cause to advance first aid knowledge, they once again held a brief video call at the height of their events. This, way the international colleagues and volunteers were able to all stand together in spreading their message, even though the events were up to 2000 kilometres apart.

You can watch the video of the awareness events here:

Video footage by all participating organisations. Photos in this article by ASBÖ, FSR, LSA, WK.