Cobb County Safety Village

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2010

The Cobb County Safety Village is one of the most comprehensive safety training environments in the state of Georgia. On its eight-acre site, the Safety Village aims to provide the highest quality of safety education available. Primarily designed for elementary-aged children, the Safety Village provides hands-on life safety training in a life-like environment. The site itself is designed to be a working village, paved and design like a small scale neighborhood. It includes sidewalks, traffic signals and a variety of other structures to create a realistic setting in which children can learn and appreciate personal safety. The safety village and attached David Hankerson Education Building is a large facility which includes state-of-the-art classrooms, offices for employees, a cafeteria, conference room and an auditorium for larger presentations. In addition, a small, replica home serves as a revolutionary fire-safety learning tool for students. Once children enter the house, it begins to fill with smoke from installed smoke machines and the door knob is heated by steam. Children must then utilize fire escape techniques, maneuvering across the floor and eventually escaping with a safety ladder through a window. Cleary, the Safety Village presents students with a special opportunity. Within this controlled environment, students can experience and learn invaluable lessons in fire, traffic, disaster and construction site safety in a unique and unforgettable way. Since it has opened, the Cobb County Safety Village has improved the fire department’s efficiency in training students by over 200% as a result of this new centralized location. Twice as many students have been able to take part in this safety training as before the Safety Village opened.