Back in 2013 Denise and I hit the road to conduct a National tour of Australia visiting every state and territory promoting our Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Curriculum. Relying on our trusty D-MAX, we covered 20,000km in 66 days visiting as many regional schools and community groups as possible.
We have been delivering our curriculum to Queensland schools since 2011 so getting the message out to the wider community was an important way to empower more Australians to educate their children and families on child safety.
Since then, we have moved into an MU-X giving us more space to cart around our educational products and with our DMF trailer in tow we’ve travelled over 70,000kms. The curriculum is now available for full implementation into Queensland and also available to all Australian schools. It teaches children about personal safety and awareness across a wide and varied set of circumstances, including cyber safety and phone safety by focusing on the three key safety words: Recognise, React and Report.
Our school visits are the most enjoyable aspect of our work at the Daniel Morcombe Foundation. The kids are always so interested in our story because it is real. They then appreciate that even though you may not be looking for trouble, sometimes in life trouble finds you. Quickly they want to listen to ways to keep safe. Recognise potential danger through their body clues, React by having a plan and getting to a safe location quickly, then importantly Report why they felt unsafe to an adult.
Denise and I have now delivered school presentations to over 130,000 students across more than 400 Queensland schools in our vehicles. Nationally we have visited over 500 schools plus an additional 500 community groups meaning we have been able to reach over 250,000 children across Australia.
Travelling is a requirement for us to be able to spread the word and we’ve gone through all different types of terrain, learning a few things along the way. It’s important we keep the momentum rolling and increase awareness for such an important topic, and as such we gratefully appreciate the support afforded to us by the team at Isuzu UTE Australia.
Each year, Day for Daniel is the focus of all our work. It is Australia’s largest child safety day-of-action of its type with more than 1,000,000 people participating nationally. Wear red, Educate and Donate is its motto. This year Day for Daniel will be held on the 28th October. Our 2016 online registrations are already at record levels with more than 2,200 schools participating and we hope you will join us in our crusade to keep our children safe. For registrations, visit www.dayfordaniel.com.au.
