Mother, Baby & Child 2014 Opens Today With Disney Safety Smart Program Headlining Day One Of Three-Day Family Showcase

The annual Mother Baby and Child Show (MBC) opens today (27 November 2014) at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre with a serious message about child safety – as well as a fun line-up of activites and stage shows – as the regional launchpad for a Disney-sponsored series of sessions aimed at educating early years practitioners and their students.

The Disney Safety Smart Program, organised in partnership with UL, is an an award-winning multi-lingual global programme that features a series of educational and entertaining safety animations.

“’Wild About Safety with Timon and Pumbaa’ is a great way for kids in the UAE, as well as parents and educators, to learn about ‘safety smart’ behaviour and instill the basics that will keep them safe and healthy at school, at home and in public areas,” said Shannon Norris, Exhibition Director for Mother, Baby & Child Show (MBC).

“We are very excited to have the sessions feature as a highlight of this year’s line-up of events and with unintentional injuries the leading cause of death in children aged zero to 19 years in Europe, this worrying statistic holds relevance to the UAE market where health and safety training for youngsters, parents and educators is not always a first priority,” she added.

The 12-minute custom animation features Timon and Pumbaa from Disney’s The Lion King, with the engaging and creative format getting kids to sing along as supporting visual, audio, sensory and repetition learning reinforces the safety first message.

The interactive programme utilises UL’s century of expertise in safety knowledge and leverages Disney characters and storytelling capabilities in order to teach safety, health and environmental stewardship to children,” Norris noted.

A limited number of spaces are available for early years practitioners and students at this weekend’s event but practitioners will also have the opportunity to attend a number of free certified training sessions conducted by a Disney specialist with copies of the DVDs.

The programme is supported with a collection of educators’, parents’ and ambassadors’ guides available on DVD/CD rom in 17 languages, and featuring classroom and take-home activities as well as bonus materials, web links and interactive games.

To date, Safety Smart content has reached 22 countries and over 117.6 million people.

In addition to the three sessions on the opening day of the show, two further sessions will be held on Friday 28th November at 1.30pm and on Saturday 29th November at 2pm.

Visitors to this year’s show will also be able to access a diverse line-up of child-friendly and parent-focused activities from live demonstrations from top global brands to exciting competitions and edutainment opportunities.

For the first time ever, MBC will welcome iconic Sesame Street characters Elmo, Cookie Monster and Grover to the stage for a fun song and dance session along with a number of never-before-seen characters created especially for a new Arabic language version of the hit US educational show.

Another guest star from the cartoon world joining in the fun is Japan’s most famous animated export, Hello Kitty, who will make several special photo opportunity appearances throughout the week, in partnership with Babyshop.

Emirate:  Dubai

Date: Nov 27, 2014

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