Mexico: Schools show kids how to react to drug gang shootings
Education officials in the state of Tamaulipas have designed a security manual that tells students how to react to a potential drug gang shoot out nearby. (Screen capture: Primer Impacto)
By MANUEL RUEDA
Channel: Latin American Affairs
Forget fire drills.
Education officials in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas are distributing a security manual that shows students what to do in case drug gangs begin to shoot at each other nearby.
The illustrated manual tells kids to crawl on the ground and get under tables it also includes information on how to react to more common threats like earthquakes or fires.
“The manuals we are handing out are for teachers and students, we made a manual that is exclusively for third and fourth graders, and another one for fifth and sixth grade,” said Juan Gallardo Baez, who directs a state program called Escuela Segura, or Safe School.
Baez has some reasons to be concerned. Tamaulipas is one of Mexico’s most violent states, with some 700 drug war killings in 2010. Gunfights break out frequently in cities like Matamoros, Reynosa, and Nuevo Laredo, which are all next to Texas.
Last year, a kindergarten teacher in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon, famously recorded how her class reacted to a shootout near her school.
The teacher, Martha Rivera, told kids to lie on the ground, and had them sing a Barney song, in order to keep them calm.
Rivera’s cell phone video went viral on YouTube, and she was given a special plaque for showing “courage and bravery” by the Nuevo Leon government.
Check out this video by Univision’s Primer Impacto, it shows how Tamaulipas kids are preparing for drug gang shootouts.
