Teachers from about 80 kindergartens in Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province, attended on Monday a special training program at Guangzhou Children's Hospital to help reduce the number of accidents involving children.

The program was organized by Safe Kids Worldwide, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing children under the age of 14 from suffering accidental injury.

This is the first time that kindergarten teachers have taken part in a home safety course. They will now go on to help train more than 25,000 parents across the city.

Statistics indicate that about 330,000 children are injured in accidents in Guangzhou annually, compared to 270,000 in Beijing and 250,000 in Shanghai.

More than 40 percent of unintentional injuries suffered by children happen at home, according to Martin R. Eichelberger, president and chief executive officer of Safe Kids Worldwide.

He added: "Home safety training should never be neglected. Prevention is much more cost-effective than treatment."

"What Safe Kids Worldwide has done is to minimize the risk of injuries to children in all of its 16 member countries, including China."

He said the group has planned a range of other initiatives, such as winter vacation safety and fire prevention programs, across China.

Chen Jialin, the father of a four-year old boy in Guangzhou, said that his son can be very mischievous, and that he had been waiting a long time for training opportunities related to children's safety.

In late March, Safe Kids Worldwide and international logistics company FedEx launched a pedestrian safety campaign at an elementary school in downtown Guangzhou.

The campaign aimed to improve children's awareness of the need to take care while walking near roads.

It also called for improvements of the traffic environment in communities where primary schools are located.

Among the main causes of injuries to children are traffic accidents, fires, bites, poisoning, electric shocks, suffocation and drowning.

Meanwhile, kindergartens across Guangzhou have stepped up security in general in the wake of the fatal arson attack at a kindergarten in central China's Henan Province last week.

Three children died and 13 were injured in the blaze, which took place in the village of Shiguan, Gongyi City.

A 19-year-old man was later arrested in connection with the arson.

"All the kindergartens in the city have since been urged to strengthen safety measures and on-campus management," said Wang Yulan, a kindergarten teacher in Guangzhou.

(China Daily May 16, 2006)