Saving Lives Through Community Training
A proposal to Western Foundation from TechCon

Introduction
As of 2013 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Cardiac arrest can strike people of all ages and usually without warning. Many of these lives can be saved by cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). By organizing a CPR training program for the community, we can make a difference and help save lives by teaching our citizens the life-saving skills of CPR.
Current Situation
Heart disease doesn’t discriminate against age. It is amongst the leading cause of death in every age group and rises to the top, as the groups get older. There is little warning to when cardiac arrest will strike, but when it does the victim loses consciousness and stops breathing no matter what the age. Most of these occur in the homes and offices and many in schools and public events. Unfortunately, many of theses cases result in death, but with effective CPR provided immediately after cardiac arrest the chance for survival is greatly enhanced.
However, there are barriers in training a community for a CPR program. Many people are embarrassed to practice CPR skills in public. They are also afraid of failure and assume that they are physically and psychologically unable to perform the skills. But we here at TechCon believe the community will actively participate in the Community CPR Training program knowing that this can help them and their families.
Project Plan
Since cardiac arrests may occur anytime and at any place, it is beneficial that we give our community an advantage of learning CPR skills. The Channing Bete Company has available CPR training kits that are cost effective and designed for use during training and in the privacy of one’s home. This has also been proven to be educationally effective. With its self-paced learning program, it will be possible to train a large number of people even without the presence of an instructor. It is also important that participants of this program will be able to teach their family members of the CPR skills as well. Each CPR kit includes a personal CPR mannequin, a CPR Kit Practice DVD, CPR booklet, accessories for the program, and directions for use. The program takes 30 minutes on average, which is very manageable.

The goal of the Community CPR Training program is to give CPR training to 250 citizens per yearly quarter. These participants, in turn, will transfer their knowledge to the more than 500 members of their families. With this goal in mind, we put forth the following objectives:

Increase the number of knowledgeable people in providing CPR that will benefit family, friends and neighbors in cases of emergency.
Train family members of each participant with CPR through the CPR Kit that participants will get from the training.
Decrease the disability and death toll brought about by cardiac arrest. Through the training, participants will be able to distinguish the signs of cardiac arrest, give CPR as a first aid, and call 911 for help.

The Community CPR Training will be held for one day every quarter beginning the first Saturday after October 1st at the local community center. Training sessions will start by 9:00 am and run until 11:00 am with a lunch provided after the completion of the course. Participants will be divided into three groups with two instructors per group. Participants will be asked to register to receive their personal CPR training kit. At the end of the training all participants will be given a CPR Training Certificate.

Qualifications
There will