What is the best way to build confidence in young children? Throw them into a muddy snake pit and hose them down with water when they try to crawl out of it – at least that’s what some training instructors in Malaysia though when they subjected some schoolgirls to this horrible exercise.
The Civil Defense Forces trainers in the country recently forced some 45 children, from a primary school in Kuala Kangsar, to enter a snake pit with thigh-high water and dash from one end to the other as part of their team-building program. The children were supposed to climb out via a steep slope on the other side.
The video, posted above, shows a group of little girls screaming and crying out in terror as the wiggling reptiles swim near them. When the kids try and get out, the instructor sprays them with water, and then in a truly horrendous move, throws live python towards them.
“The government should ban this kind of training. Suspend the training centre and put the trainers involved on blacklist,” said National Parent-Teachers Association chair, Mohammad Ali Hassan. “The trainers should be sent for rehabilitation, themselves. It is a live snake. Not a toy snake. What were they thinking?”
The trainers were suspended shortly after the video began making rounds on the internet.
“We regret that this has happened. This is an individual act and not sanctioned by the department. In fact, it is against our standard operating procedure to have such training for primary-school children,” said Selamat Dahalan, the deputy director-general of operations for Malaysian Civil Defense Force. “We hope that they can accept our apologies and explanation on the incident.”
He also explained the training modules for primary-school children usually involved displays of what one should do in an emergency – for instance, basic first-aid training and fire awareness.
“The one showed in the video is nothing like what we have conducted before,” he added. “There should not be any water spraying or making the kids wade in a muddy pit – let alone involving a snake.”
In the meantime, the course has been shut down.