First Aid, Fire Safety, Teacher Training: How SAVE Is Quietly Building Safer Schools
When a fire breaks out at a preschool, who knows what to do? At SAVE's centres, the answer is everyone.
In January 2026, fire swept through Harare Kidz in Dunoon — one of the ECD centres SAVE has supported for years. The building was damaged. Equipment was destroyed. The school that principal Esteline Sauls had built from nothing, and described as her heart, was left in ruins overnight. The community rallied. SAVE responded. The rebuild began. But the incident underscored something that informal ECD centres across South Africa live with every day: in an environment built largely from timber, zinc, and recycled materials, the basics of emergency preparedness are not optional — they are life-saving.
The Training Gap in South African ECD
South Africa has over 47 000 ECD facilities serving children under six years of age, the majority operating in informal or semi-formal structures. Despite a National Qualifications Framework for ECD practitioners, the majority at unregistered centres — which serve a disproportionate share of children in low-income communities — have limited or no formal training in child safety, emergency response, or first aid.
What SAVE Provides
Training SAVE facilitates at ECD Centres
| ✓ | Paediatric first aid certification — recognising and responding to choking, seizures, burns, and head injuries |
| ✓ | Fire safety training — evacuation procedures, fire extinguisher use, identifying fire hazards in the classroom |
| ✓ | Child safeguarding and abuse reporting protocols — who to call and when |
| ✓ | ECD methodology and classroom management — practical, ongoing teacher development |
| ✓ | Nutrition and food safety — safe food handling and preparation at scale for young children |
| ✓ | Basic hygiene and sanitation practices — prevention of infectious disease spread |
SAVE’s approach to training is practical and embedded. We do not send teachers to a weekend workshop and leave. Our project leaders, present at these centres weekly, model best practice, support implementation, and follow up. The learning is ongoing, not once-off.
"A teacher who knows paediatric first aid doesn't just potentially save a life in an emergency. She changes the way she thinks about her children's safety in every ordinary moment of every ordinary day."
Why Teacher Training Changes Everything
The Stellenbosch University ECD systems study is unambiguous: quality of instruction matters more than enrolment. And quality of instruction depends on the knowledge, skills, and confidence of the people in front of the children. When SAVE invests in a teacher training session, we are multiplying that investment across every child in her class, every day, for years.
The Harare Kidz Story
Esteline Sauls is rebuilding Harare Kidz after the 2026 fire — with support from SAVE, with the same determination she has brought to this work for years. The name of her school means "one who does not sleep." In the weeks after the fire, the children never stopped coming. The teaching never stopped. In a tent, then a borrowed space, then slowly a rebuilt room — because the work does not stop because a building burns.