For Life! working group project

Head of group: Jani Breznik; members: students of the Medical Faculty of the University of Maribor (103 members)
Proposer: Centre for Emergency Medical Assistance and Ambulance Transport, Maribor, consultant Asst. Prof. Dr. Štefek Grmec, MD (specialised).

The members of the For Life! project, who come from the Maribor Society of Medical Students, wish through their work primarily to raise the awareness and refresh the knowledge of the largest possible number of people (aged between 20 and 60 years), so they might be able to intervene and help an injured or suddenly ill person. At the same time they also wish to educate primary school pupils to become responsible people and to present first aid as an individual's ethical, moral and civic duty. They wish to extend the existing network of automatic defibrillators in Slovenia. They disseminate knowledge and skills by organising individual or group courses (they also provide courses adapted for young people at primary schools), they plan and carry out promotions of knowledge of first aid in the most remote areas around Slovenia, and they act as mediators in purchases of automatic defibrillators and in educating executive personnel. Their work is of course very welcome and important for the general public.

Members of the working group are aware of the need for constant, lifelong refreshing, consolidating and enhancement of knowledge and skills in first aid. Through several years of cooperation with the Centre for Emergency Medical Assistance and Ambulance Transport in Maribor, they are enjoying considerable success. People are thus enhancing their knowledge of first aid, so they might be able later on to use it effectively in practice. This is also the purpose of the For Life! project: to have the confidence and knowledge to help those who urgently need first aid.