Safety Basic - An Exposure

By Corporal Brendan Eu Che-Jie of the 12th Kuala Lumpur Company

October 25th, 2014

There are numerous awards that are attainable in The Boys’ Brigade, ranging from Arts, Crafts, and Hobbies to Water Adventure. It is in no way possible that a company can conduct all the awards classes in a year, which is why the 12^th Kuala Lumpur Company took the opportunity during the second half of the year 2014 to conduct a badge work class for the Safety Award.

This badge work class was conducted by Mr. Andrew Tan, one of 12^th KL’s officers. We had our first class on the 16^th of August, where the class was about the introduction to safety. During the first class itself, we already fell into a cascade of knowledge about safety. We got to know the difference between safety, hazards, and risks, pro-action and reaction, and many more. Furthermore, Mr. Andrew also taught us about accidents, which are defined as unforeseen incidents or unexpected and undesirable events. We also had group discussions among the members where we had to figure out the definitions of safety, which Mr. Andrew then revealed to us that safety is better defined as a judgment of acceptability of risk.

There was a whole lot more in the first lesson. We were also exposed to the types of safety, namely normative safety, substantive safety, and perceived safety, each with their own definitions. Other than that, Mr. Andrew also showed us the accidents’ theories, where the more popular and well known ones would be the Tye/Pearson 1974 Theory and the Domino Theory. But, as many in the Boys’ Brigade would know, no officers would end any class without an assignment, and there we had it as the session was nearing its end. We had to prepare a presentation about the accidents’ theories in the following class next week.

During the following lessons, it was all up to us to do the talking in front of the class as members would divide themselves into groups of four or five and each group had to present something about safety each week based on our handouts. There were only three groups who presented in the second lesson (23^rd of August) about the accidents’ theories, all of which did a good job, according to our badge work instructor, Mr. Andrew. As there was still time in our hands after the presentations, Mr. Andrew continued the lesson with a discussion about the causes of accidents.

Based on the handouts that we received from Mr. Andrew, there are seven common accident causes, namely taking shortcuts, being overconfident, starting a task with incomplete instructions, poor housekeeping, ignoring safety procedures, mental distractions from work, and failure the pre-plan the work. To prevent my fellow readers from falling asleep, the elaboration shall be kept in the book.

Our third lesson was merged with our fourth lesson on the 6^th of September in conjunction with 12^th KL’s Merdeka Day celebration on the 30^th of August. During that lesson, we were required to present about safety signs. Many of us know what safety signs are. Of course, they are signs of safety, but it is not as simple as that as the different types of safety signs tend to convey different messages. As always, it was up to the members to find out and look up on safety signs as well as prepare everything before the day of the presentation.

During the presentations, most of the groups did a specific category of safety signs, for example, road safety signs and industrial safety signs. But the group led by Sgt. Ong Wil Sern made a different approach as they presented on the overall about the safety signs. From his detailed yet wonderful presentation, we got to know that there are four main types of safety signs, each represented with a different color, namely prohibition signs that are represented by the color red, mandatory signs that are represented by the color blue, warning signs that are represented by the color yellow, and signs that indicate safe conditions represented by the color green. There was a lot more to their presentation, but let us keep it short and sweet, shall we?

That marked the second and last presentation that we had to do as Mr. Andrew gave each group a major assignment to work on. There were four different major assignments, which were creating a fire drill layout for our school, plan on a road safety campaign, create a ‘Do and Don’t List’ for laboratories and workplaces based on safety, and create a ‘Do and Don’t List’ for home based on safety. Each group was required to pick one and complete it within the next three lessons.

During those three lessons, we were allowed to go outdoors but within the school compound, to work on our assignments. Most of the members did so, while some chose to work in class with the laptops and tablets that they brought for the assignments. Many results came in to Mr. Andrew after the three weeks, most of which were good. Thereafter, we would have our final awards test.