Australian Red Cross visits schools to deliver the Pillowcase Project to school children for Years 3 and 4. The project is designed to build children’s knowledge for disaster preparedness. Each student received and an emergency card, an activity book, a household REDiPlan and a pillowcase which they colour-in and then take home to create their own emergency kit by putting important things into the pillowcase.
Typically the children will have to leave their homes and travel to a safe place or rescue centre in an emergency, such as fire or flood. I suggested that we make the images work more like a game and came up with the idea of an adventure journey. I researched a number of vintage games, such as Snakes and Ladders. From there I created an image of a windy path where they collect all the objects to put into their pillowcase along the path.
A Red Cross worker presents the pillowcases to the children, who then decorate them by drawing a picture of their favourite places and colouring in the images with fabric pens. The children then take them home and fill them with all the important items that are listed on the pillowcase. It’s fun and totally interactive.
