Author
Reference
Benard,
L. (2015): The Difference between safety and security
in Kenyan Context. Intel
Fire Group of Companies Blog. Nairobi, Kenya.
“Safety” and “Security” are words that are proving to be misunderstood even by
the elite safety and security academicians. It is therefore a common thing to
read misplaced use of these words in different contexts. The online Oxford
dictionary for example defines security as “the
state of feeling safe, stable, and free from fear or anxiety”. The same
dictionary also gives the definition of safety as “the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger,
risk, or injury. But since this article does not repute these definitions,
it is clear that the difference between safety and security does not come out
clearly and again one would refer to these two words as synonym. The author of
this article is not also a literature scholar and only provides this school of
thought in relation to the field of safety service delivery.
Safety
The word
safety is directed towards life and therefore is in direct relation to a threat
on life whether human or otherwise. This, in my opinion, would then give a
distinctive meaning to the term safety as the “the condition of life being protected from any danger”. Then with
this meaning we can therefore say one is emotionally safe, environmentally safe,
physically safe, and many other safes that are not only used in Kenya but the
world over. When one is involved in an accident and you are told that the
person is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in some hospital, what clicks to
your mind is his or her life. The item that caused the accident does not come
to mind at this juncture unless the condition dictates otherwise. Safety
therefore is directed towards saving life. This is the reason we have those
fellows called the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) whose major duties are
related to saving lives and not the art of saving properties.
Security
Again
one should be alive to the fact that security in general is directed towards
non-living like being secure in your grave, of course you are dead so you
cannot be safe at this juncture. Security therefore is in direct relation to
property or items of non-living nature. The online Oxford dictionary definition
of this term assumes you are an average English language user and therefore “security”
and “safety” are synonyms as mentioned earlier. Regrettably this is not the
case as you are now enlightened on what the real meaning is.
In Kenya’s Context
What
happened in Garissa University College remains in the memory of most Kenyans
but from it Kenyans and their partners learnt a lot. Now in this scenario,
safety will be directed towards the students, staff, visitors and any other
person and or animal at the premises of this campus. The questions asked would
therefore be “were these people safety
taken into consideration at the university?” In order to answer this
question, then the security aspect is brought into play hence the question, “was Garissa university college premises secure?”
When these questions are answered then what is being addressed is safety and
security and the officers’ in charge would issue statements with the words
security and safety interchangeably.
The
media reporting in Kenya which is also usually skewed does not in many
instances understand the difference between these two words. For media houses,
like many except for a few, the reporters are not specialized in their area of
reporting and especially in cases where the reporters are regionally based.
When reporting on safety and security issues, the flow of reporting should follow
by giving distinction to these words. One would ask why safety first then
security? Because first it is important to ensure that the living are safe and
then report how secure the premises is. All the jargon in this world can be
applied in reporting safety and security but if it does not flow, that is a mission
failed.
Be safe first then secure your premises.
The Author is a Research Generalist in Projects Management Specializing
in Safety Service Delivery
