OSCE equips Ukraine’s emergency service with materials for chemical security risk education

As the ongoing war against Ukraine causes damage to industrial facilities across the country, it heightens the risks of release of toxic chemicals, posing a serious danger for people and environment. To help diminish threats to health and lives of people, the OSCE Secretariat Extra-Budgetary Support Programme for Ukraine (the SPU) produced and delivered to the country’s State Emergency Service (the SESU) the awareness-raising materials, designed to inform the public about safety rules for chemical emergencies.  

These materials include a 4-minute educational cartoon “Chemical Emergency – Safety Rules”, that explains signs of such situation, including symptoms of impact of chemicals on health, outlines rules of safe behavior in a variety of situations where chemical threats can materialize. This cartoon can be used during awareness-raising outreach events, organized by the Service for people leaving in high risk areas, e.g. near industrial facilities. It is accompanied by a short version on signs of a chemical emergency, as well as four clips with safety rules for when people can be caught in such a disaster, notably outdoors, in the premises - at home or in the office, while driving. These materials can be instrumental for social media and outreach for specific audiences; they are available at the OSCE website and SESU resource “Safety ABC”.  

In addition, the SPU updated designs of leaflets on dangers posed by most widespread industrial chemicals and produced a handy brochure with safety rules in case of emergencies with ammonia, nitric acid, chlorine and mercury. A brochure and two types of posters on dangers posed by chemical weapons were also developed for civil defense lessons. The State Emergency Service received in total 11,000 print copies of these publications; they were dispatched to regional offices of the SESU for distribution. Digital copies of print materials can be found here.  

This effort is part of the “Enhancing Ukraine’s Chemical Emergency Response Capacity” project, implemented by the OSCE Secretariat Extra-Budgetary Support Programme for Ukraine with financial contributions from the Organization's participating States; see full list of the Programme's donors.