Salvadorian Nobles Bring Burn Prevention Message to Schools

Schoolchildren of every grade in El Salvador have a personal electronic device, either a tablet or a laptop. It’s part of a concentrated government program. Taking advantage of that fact, the El Salvador Shrine Club obtained permission to use those devices to send burn awareness videos to every one of those children and teens.

Across the fraternity, many temples are committed to sharing burn prevention messages with schools and communities, particularly during Burn Awareness Week in February. The Salvadorian effort is particularly innovative. In its reach, it is a very impressive effort, for which the club needed the approval of four separate government ministries, including the ministries of health and education.

“In El Salvador, we have had very serious cases of burns due to domestic accidents,” said Juan Carlos Otaegui, president of the Salvadorian club, discussing the impetus for the campaign. “Prevention, over treatment, is the cure for that. We believe that a second invested in prevention is hours of pain relieved, and a dollar invested in this effort is thousands of dollars saved in expensive treatments.”

The campaign comprises four videos, the first of which has already been sent to the school devices.

The club, which is affiliated with the Abou Saad Shriners in Panama City, Panama, intends that the messages and information will spread beyond the children to the rest of the country, since children who learn naturally want to share.

“The campaign will reach all children in public schools in our country, students of all grades, and the objective is for the little ones to tell their parents, and the older ones to take precautions and take care of their little siblings,” Noble Otaegui said.

The club’s burn prevention campaign has been four years in the making. When COVID-19 forced the schools to operate virtually, that spawned an initiative to transform the country digitally.

When the schools initially closed, and learning was being done remotely, many children were using cell phones, when they had any internet connectivity at all. It wasn’t working well. So, in February 2021, the government began distributing better electronic devices to all schoolchildren, elementary school to high school. Simpler tablets were given to the youngest children, with the devices transitioning to laptops for the older ones. All are connected to the internet.

The Salvadorian government sees the school devices as part of a larger effort to make the country more technologically literate and to transition it into a regional tech hub.

This burn campaign capitalizes on the government’s efforts to grow the adoption and use of electronic technology.

This year is a major one for the fraternity’s burn mission. First Lady Judy Burke has embraced burn awareness with her On Angels’ Wings program, which focuses on Shriners Children's mission regarding burn care and prevention.

On Angels’ Wings refers to the sense we have that Shiners Children’s patients stand on the wings of angels; that is, those who give them strength, love and support.

Their families, friends, doctors and nurses – and the amazing network of Shriners and Ladies – are those angels, First Lady Judy says. Education and prevention are essential in reducing the number of burn injuries sustained by children and adults every year.