Diva fire safety campaign

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY
LEICESTER BUSINESS SCHOOL
How successful was the Diva Fire Safety Campaign?
RAK MISTRY
( BSc (Hons) Dip M )
A dissertation submitted in part requirement for the award of
MASTERS IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
August 2005

Jai Shree Krishna
We understand and respect that Hindu’s light a Diva in the presence of God.
However for your own safety, for the safety of your family and home, please
follow the advice as demonstrated.
Electric – Have you
thought about using
an Electric Diva?
SHREE SANATAN MANDIR
& COMMUNITY CENTRE
84 Weymouth Street (Off Catherine Street), Leicester, LE4 6FQ
Tel: (0116) 266 1402
Email:
sanatanmandir@tiscali.co.uk
Chunri – Make sure you
keep the Chunri well
away from the Diva.
Children – Make
sure the Diva is not
easily reached by
Children. They can
burn their fingers and
drop it causing a fire.
Overnight – DO NOT
keep the Diva
unattended overnight.
Saree and Long Hair –
Keep yourself well
away. Previously
Saree’s and long hair
have caught fire and
Garland – are highly
inflammable as they are
made of Silk and
Woodchip, so you must
keep them away from the
Diva and insure they are
securely fastened and do
not fall on the Diva.
Ghee – Just put enough
Ghee into the Diva, so you
do not leave the Diva
unattended, making sure it
goes out.
HOW SUCCESSFUL
WAS THE DIVA FIRE
SAFETY CAMPAIGN?
RAK MISTRY
EXECUTIVE MBA
AUGUST 2005

Executive MBA – R D Mistry
ABSTRACT
An exploratory study to document the Diva Fire Safety Campaign phenomenon. A
comprehensive review of literature in the fire safety education arena revealed that
there is lack of specific research on campaigns targeting ethnic minorities. This case
will demonstrate a specific campaign targeting the fire safety message to the Hindu
Gujarati community of Leicester, UK. The approach and method used by Leicester
Fire Service will be documented and a variety of methods were used to investigate
the outcomes of the campaign.
The Diva Fire Safety Campaign was well received by its audience and a variety of
primary and secondary data confer its success. The approach used by Leicester Fire
Service of working in partnership with the Community was justified. The case
illustrates and confirms that having the Community advise, design and implement the
program in partnership with the Fire Service was a key element of its success. It
confirms the theory that to target ethnic minority groups in the fire safety arena it is
assumed that a strategy of involving the community would be effective.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In preparing this MBA Dissertation project I would like to acknowledge a variety of
people who have made this possible from the provision of information, access to
sources and for general guidance and inspiration, in an area worthy of research:Institutions
Fire Service College
Amanda Barnes, Richard Johnes
Leicestershire and Rutland Fire and Rescue Service
David Webb, Paul Percival, Paul Botterill, Amanda, David Campion
De Montfort University
Panos Andrikopoulos
Martyn Kendrick
Those involved in devising, planning, running and implementing the Diva Fire Safety
Campaign (DFSC)
Fire Fighters Steve
Kisby (Originator of the DFSC), Carl Clayton
Diversity Community Advisor – Mina Patel
Community Leader – Rashmikant R Joshi, General Secretary
Shree Hindu Temple, St Barnabas Rd, Leicester.
DMU Placement Student – Minal Sikotra (Shree Sanatan Mandir Placement)
Field Work data collection
Mrs Hansa Mistry (my mum)

ABBREVIATIONS
DFSC Diva Fire Safety Campaign
DLTR Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions
FRS Fire Rescue Service
FSE Fire Safety Education
LFRS Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service
LFRSES
Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service Eastern
Station
(1 Fire Brigade of a total 20 that LFRS operate)
NFPA National Fire Protection Association (US Fire Service
1 Executive MBA – R D Mistry
representative body)
NFSC National Fire Safety Centre
OPDM Office Department of the Deputy Prime Minister

CONTENTS
DISSERTATION TITLE............................................................................................... 1
1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1
2.0 AIMS OF THE PROJECT .............................................................................. 3
3.0 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................. 5
4.0 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................ 7
4.1 Key Findings from the Literature Review...................................................... 7
4.2 The regulatory environment in which the UK Fire Service operates .............. 9
4.3 Fire Safety Education (FSE) ........................................................................ 12
Table 1 Hierarchy
of evaluation measures for community fire safety ........ 15
4.4 Ethnic Marketing & Marketing...................................................................... 18
4.5 Summary of Literature Review .................................................................... 22
5.0 RESEARCH QUESTIONS........................................................................... 23
6.0 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ 23
6.1 Research Strategy....................................................................................... 23
6.2 Sampling...................................................................................................... 25
6.3 Research Methods ...................................................................................... 26
6.4 Data Collection Methods.............................................................................. 26
6.5 Managing response rates ............................................................................ 27
6.6 Ethical, Political, Legal Considerations........................................................ 28
6.7 Problems encountered................................................................................. 29
6.8 What would I do differently? ........................................................................ 31
7.0 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS ........................................................................ 32
7.1 Primary Data Analysis ................................................................................. 32
Table 2 – Gender distribution of Hindu respondents interviewed at Holi. .... 33
Figure 1 – Change in gender behaviour ......................................................... 34
Figure 2 – Has leaflet changed gender behaviour.......................................... 34
Figure 3 – Female ranked opinions on leaflet................................................. 35

Figure 4 – Male ranked opinions on leaflet..................................................... 35
Figure 5 – Awareness of DFSC...................................................................... 36
Figure 6 – Smoke alarm bought due to DFSC................................................ 36
Figure 7 – What genders cited the DFSC was ............................................... 36
Figure 8 – Preferred mode of communication vs. how aware of DFSC Females
....................................................................................................................... 37
Figure 9 – Preferred mode of communication vs. how aware of DFSC Males37
Figure 10 – Distribution by Age Groups ......................................................... 38
Figure 11 – Awareness by Age Group ........................................................... 38
Figure 12 – What is the Campaign about by age group ................................. 39
Figure 13 – Behaviour change by age group ................................................. 39
Figure 14 – Ranked opinions on DFSC Leaflet by age group ........................ 39
7.2 Qualitative Statements as attained from those involved in the Campaign ... 40
7.3 In depth interview Steve
Kisby, Fire Fighter, Originator of DFSC ............. 41
7.4 Secondary Data Sources............................................................................. 44
7.5 Fire incident reporting data (Internal document) .......................................... 44
7.6 FIRE Safety Award – Memorandum from LFRS CFA................................
44
7.7 Outreach Workers ....................................................................................... 44
8.0 CONCLUSION............................................................................................. 45
8.1 Fire Service perspective .............................................................................. 45
8.2 Individual Community Perspective............................................................... 46
8.3 Overall conclusion ....................................................................................... 47
9.0 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HOST ORGANISATION................................ 48
10. FURTHER RESEARCH IDEAS ................................................................... 50
11. 0 PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ....................................................................... 51
11.1 How did I develop in the course of the project? ........................................... 51
11.2 What advice would you offer to someone undertaking this project in the
future? ......................................................................................................... 52
11.3 What personal lessons I have learnt?.......................................................... 52
APPENDICES
BIBLIOGRAPHY

DISSERTATION TITLE
How successful has the Diva Fire Safety Campaign been in communicating the fire
safety message to the Hindu Gujarati community of Leicester and is there a need for
this sort of targeted campaign?
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Within this dissertation, I will evaluate a particular fire safety campaign, which targets
a specific group of people in the community of Leicester. The campaign I am going to
evaluate is the Diva Fire Safety Campaign (DFSC) which commenced May 2004 and
is now an ongoing seasonal campaign, targeting the Hindu Gujarati community of
Leicester. The reason for looking at this campaign is that it was the first time I came
across a public service body (the fire and rescue service) coming out to the
community at a religious event to communicate a health and safety issue; an issue
that can affect the Hindu community with severe and often fatal consequences.
The Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service Eastern
Station (LFRSES)
were
concerned with the number of house fires caused accidentally by unattended divas,
both recently and historically within the Hindu community. In the past 12 months,
LFRSES
had been called out to 25 fires caused by candles 1 and a total of 5 people
died in Leicester as a result of an unattended Diva fire earlier in the year, in April
2004.
A diva is similar to a candle; members of the Hindu faith as part of their daily prayers
usually light it for religious significance. During the festival of Navratri and Diwali, the
number of divas lit will be much more in number. The occurrence of a fire is much
greater at this time, as Divas will be left unattended in rooms in the house as part of a
cultural tradition to celebrate the victory of good over evil.
The diva is in a small container filled with ghee (purified butter), with a wick made
from cotton wool. Once lit, it is left to burn out and is not extinguished once prayers
1 Hawley, Liz (2004), “Candlelight Prayer appeal to warn of blaze dangers”, Leicester Mercury .

are complete. The diva is placed in a shrine (Mandir/Temple), which is surrounded
with pictures, garlands and miniature god like statues. The fire threat posed is in
leaving the diva(s) unattended or near items that can easily catch fire in houses
where there is no smoke alarm. A total of 6 people died as a result of Diva fires in
Diwali period last year (Odpm, 2002). Appendices 1 – 9 show all the background
details to the case in a chronological date order.
During the Hindu nineday
festival of Navratri in October 2004, the LFRSES
conducted a fire safety talk to an audience of 800 people at Shree Prajapati Samaj
Community Hall in Leicester. Two Fire safety officers in English conducted the talk.
They wanted to highlight the potential risk of fires from divas and they had devised a
bilingual
leaflet (Appendix 1) in conjunction with Shree Sanatan Mandir to
communicate the Diva Fire Safety message and the need to have working smoke
alarms in the House.
They emphasized that the youngsters and adults who understood English should
explain and reiterate
the fire safety message to others in the community, who may
have little knowledge or understanding of the English language. The aim of the
LFRSES
was to raise awareness of the risks surrounding Divas and to ultimately
prevent fires and deaths. They ended the talk by wishing all the community members
a happy Navratri and to have a peaceful, firefree
festival. They then hand delivered
800 leaflets to the community members who were at this event. I was one of those
members who received a leaflet.
The leaflet pictorially showed the diva in the place of a shrine and the areas where
fire risk was greatest. It was produced in colour and on one side of the leaflet
information was in English and the other side was in Gujarati, the native language of
all the members of that community.
I was inspired by both the leaflet and the fire talk and wanted to find out if this
campaign had worked in getting the fire message to the target audience and to look
at this campaign in more detail. From the viewpoint of an outsider looking at the fire
service, from an individual community perspective, as I am a member of one of the

Community groups that the talk was given to (a total of ten similar fire talks were
given to similar sized Community groups).
From the outset it must be clarified that this research project will look at just one
segment of the ethnic market i.e. the Hindu Gujarati community of Leicester, which
makes up 14% of the population of Leicester 4 . The lighting of Divas is only particular
to the Hindu, Sikh and Jain faith. Whilst many Sikhs, Jains also light divas as part of
their religion, the DFSC was not targeted to such groups due to a) available
resources/funds and b) the fact that they do not use divas as frequently as the Hindu
faith based on fires that had happened previously.
The DFSC is the first of its kind in targeting a Fire Safety message to this particular
community. Since its launch in Leicester, the DFSC has received a considerable
amount of publicity, praise and has involved a high number of people from the
community and the Fire Service. It has received local and national recognition and
has won a prestigious Fire Safety Award for the Eastern Station (Appendix 20) and
will be rolled out as a National Campaign across Fire Brigades in the country, where
there is a high Hindu population.
2.0 AIMS OF THE PROJECT
My aims of the project are: a)
How much has the Campaign raised awareness of Diva as a fire threat, amongst
the Hindu Gujarati Community of Leicester?
b) Has the campaign changed attitudes and/or behaviour with regard to lighting
divas amongst this audience?
c) To analyse and comment on the approach used by LFRSES?
I propose to tackle the project by getting in touch with the LFRSES
and to speak
directly to the personnel involved in devising, planning and implementing the
Campaign. After ascertaining the reasons and motivations of the LFRSES
for the

Campaign, I propose to look at relevant literature to identify any theory or any gaps in
the literature, before proceeding to frame relevant questions, specific to the case,
building on the foundations of what already exists. I will then formulate an appropriate
research strategy and appropriate methods to answer the questions posed. I will then
analyse and collate and report on the data collected and conclude my findings with
any recommendations.
People who are likely to be interested in this evaluation and topic are:
a) Fire service personnel – local, national and its governing bodies i.e. Office
Department of the Deputy Prime Minister (OPDM), HM Inspectorate
b) Other practitioners or public service bodies (NHS, Police, Army, Navy etc) who are
looking at doing campaigns targeting ethnic minority groups in areas such as health
promotion, injury, crime prevention and even recruitment, where ethnic minorities are
often under represented in the majority of public services.
Whilst the campaigns conducted in their respective areas will be very different, due to
their unique situation, their history and their context. The approach in terms of the
process used by LFRSES
with the Diva Campaign may provide guidance on how to
go about targeting a specific ethnic group with an awareness or education campaign
with such bodies.
As the social demographic landscape of the UK changes, there will be a need for
public serving bodies to be more reflective and more accountable to the audience
they serve. They have a statutory duty to deliver to their audience an efficient,
responsive service that is inclusive of their differing and varying, sometimes even
cultural needs, but under tight fiscal constraints, as their operations are funded
through tax payer’s money. The current Government has been looking to make
public service bodies more accountable and diverse and have made many significant
changes in regulation across all public bodies to ensure that this is the case (see
Government legislation and commentary in areas of diversity, governance, best value
plans etc)

A total of 4.6 million people in the UK belong to an ethnic minority group, equating to
7.9% of the population, the number has risen 53% in ten years preceding the
Census 2 . The ethnic population is growing at a rate of 2.5% p.a, with some major
cities now having an ethnic majority, such as London, 31% 3 , Leicester, 25.7% 4 . The
commercial and social significance of these demographic changes will mean that
public service bodies like the Fire Rescue Service (FRS) will have to be more
inclusive and accountable to reflect the needs of all their publics, from communicating
Fire threat/safety messages, to employing people from these diverse backgrounds. It
is with these changes in mind that I have embarked on this ambitious topic as I feel
more specific, ethnic oriented campaigns, will be more prevalent in the future.
3.0 BACKGROUND
Leicester has a large Indian Hindu community and as such the risk of Diva fires in
Leicester is much greater than that in other cities across England & Wales. 14.74% of
the population living in Leicester classify themselves as being from the Hindu faith,
which equates to 41,248 people. This compares to 1.06% across the entire England
& Wales country (based on 2001 census statistics) 4 . Thus the need for the Campaign
to originate from a city like Leicester is not surprising. This case has particular
relevance to cities where there is a large living populous of Hindu’s as the threat of
Diva fires is much greater, as is the cost to fight or prevent such fires. Other highly
densely populated cities with a large Hindu faith majority are Bradford, Birmingham
and London.
The average cost of a domestic fire is £25,000 of which approximately £15,000 is
accounted for cost of injuries and fatalities 5 . A total of 22 people died from 1791
2 Ethnic Insight, Robert Gray. Marketing. London:Mar 4, 2004, pg 25
3 Ethnic PR, Maja Pawinska, PR Week, 30/2/2005
4 2001, Census, Key Stats, Crown copyright, Leicester City Council ;
http://www.leicester.gov.ukdepartments/print.asp?pgid=1009
5 ODPM (2003), “The Economic Cost of Fire:Estimates for 2003”, March 2005, London, HMSO
6 ODPM (2004) “Fires in the Home:findings from the 2002/3 British Crime Survey”, February 2004, ODPM
Publications, London, HMSO
7 Hansen, E (2004), “Diversity today, action tomorrow?”, Profile, Issue 42

candle fires in 2003 5 . Whilst the statistics do not account for how many of the fires
were as a result of Divas (Diva fires are amalgamated in to broader Candle category
in the statistics), the threat is large in areas where there is a high Hindu community,
who use divas as part of their daily prayers and also more divas in the run up to the
Hindu religious festivals of Navratri and Diwali. Candle fires make up 5% of all
household fires 5 .
Currently, the FRS does not record divas as a specific type of candle fire or the
ethnicity of casualties. This makes evaluation of the size of market and the potential
threat, difficult to measure. However, one can make the assumption that if there are
41,248 Hindu people living in Leicester 4 (census, 2001) and if 80% of them regularly
light divas as part of their daily prayers, then there is a potential threat for 32,998
households to have an accidental diva fire. If this is combined with the statistics from
the British Crime Survey 2002/2003, where it was identified that 57% of
Asian 6 (referring to Indian subcontinent origin, not Chinese) households were less
likely to have a working smoke alarm, then it could be assumed that 16,499
householders could be at threat if there was an accidental diva fire. If we look at the
figure nationally, there are 559,000 Hindu households (Census 2001) and if we take
the same assumption regarding usage and the ownership of smoke alarms, then
there is a potential for 254,904 Hindu households to have a possible Diva fire in
England & Wales.
It is hoped that my dissertation will urge the Fire Service and its governing authorities
to look at how they record fires. Divas should be recorded as a specific type of candle
fire as currently there is no real way to value the market or the threat, other than
make assumptions like I have. There is a financial, economic if not a moral case to
identify the size of the diva threat, as the potential for fatalities; casualties and cost of
fires could be staggering both locally and nationally.
5 ODPM (2003), “The Economic Cost of Fire:Estimates for 2003”, March 2005, London, HMSO

I also feel it is important that the ethnicity of respondents involved in domestic
dwelling fires is recorded so that specific strategies or campaigns can be forthcoming
if there is indeed a rise in fires involving ethnic households. The 2001 Census
predicts that by 2010, 30% of the population in metropolitan cities will be from ethnic
communities 7 . Given this growth, the need to record ethnicity will be critical as each
ethnic segment may have its own peculiar customs, norms, traditions, behaviors and
attitudes towards fires. Such data will be required in the future, if the FRS is to be
more accountable and representative to its publics as part of the Governments drive
to improve governance, diversity and accountability within its public serving bodies.
4.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
4.1 Key Findings from the Literature Review
Having extensively looked into the literature surrounding Diva’s and Fires it is clearly
evident that there is a lack of specific research related to these two topics. There is
also a lack of research conducted in the much wider topic area of fires in the home,
where the DFSC can also sit. There has been a lack of published information about
specific programs targeting the much wider ethnic groups in the fire safety literature,
making a review of what has been written problematic. Any review that has been
done of programs cannot be directly compared, as the context, the situation and the
ethnic groups being targeted is different from the one under investigation. Another
difficulty posed when comparing such programs is that vital program or design details
are missing in the literature for a comparable evaluation to take place.
However, there are some fundamental reasons as to why research in to the much
wider area of fire safety in the home has been lacking in the context of the UK. This
can be accounted for by the regulation that has governed the Fire Service, which
stipulated in law, the focus of the fire service was to put out fires, protect buildings
and ‘to promote fire safety as and when requested’ (Fire Service Act 1947). The Fire
Service Act has just recently been repealed in 2004 with the Fire Service Act 2004
now stipulating that the fire service ‘has a statutory duty to promote the fire safety

message to identified groups in the community’. This change in emphasis will no
doubt generate more Campaigns and fundamental research, targeting the Fire Safety
message to the community, than has been done previously in the past and the likes
of my research will no doubt be built upon in the future.
To compile the literature review, I have conducted a comprehensive audit in the
following areas, which have relevance to the topic under investigation.
The regulatory environment in which the UK Fire Service operates – which
governs how the Fire Service goes about their work. There has been a radical
departure from fighting fires as stipulated by the Fire Service Act 1947 to fire
prevention through promoting the fire safety message to vulnerable or highrisk
groups, of which ethnic minorities have been identified as one such group, alongside
children and the elderly over 65 years of age.
Fire Safety Education (FSE) – The DFSC is an example of a FSE program,
targeting a specific community with a particular identified fire issue i.e. the
unattended Diva, with the objective of reducing fires and changing
behaviour/attitudes by raising awareness of the threat. It is important to see what has
been written in this area in terms of theory and practice.
Ethnic Marketing & Marketing – The DFSC can also be described as an ethnic
marketing campaign targeting a specific consumer audience. The literature in this
area is vast and it is important to highlight some of the issues that exist, even within
the private sector when targeting such a diverse group of consumers and some of the
common concerns or problems that occur in this area, making this an interesting area
worthy of research. Focus will take place on a qualitative study produced by COI
Communications, called the Common Research Guide (August 2003), which advises
the government or its bodies on how to communicate with varying types of ethnic
communities.

4.2 The regulatory environment in which the UK Fire Service operates
The UK FRS is a public body that is funded by the government through taxes, which
are set locally and nationally on members of the public. As it is public serving body it
has a duty to protect and serve its publics and how the Fire Service go about their
duties is set in statute, by law, which dictates what their role and responsibilities are.
Appendix 11 – details the major Acts and policy changes that have had an impact on
how the Fire Service work and I have highlighted in bold, the major changes that
explain the reason as to why there has been a lack of research or campaigns in the
area of Fire prevention.
The Fire Service Act 1947 is extremely dated and whilst its origins emerged in the
1930/1940s, the Fire Service has been working to this statute for a number of years
rigidly. The Act emphasized the duty of the Fire Service was to fight fires and protect
commercial buildings. Resources of each Brigade were deployed according to these
objectives with their being more resources housed nearer to cities than in the
suburbs where the bulk of householders lived, where the risk of fire incidence was
greater. Information concerning how to prevent fires or manage the fire risk was
given out on an ‘as and when requested’, rather than publicly promoted.
Some Fire Brigades followed the Act to the statute, whilst others did additional tasks,
such as local/regional fire safety community campaigns of varying quality, which were
really beyond the scope of the Act. The extent to what tasks the Fire Brigades took
depended on how each Brigade interpreted the Act and was reliant on the resources
they had at their disposal.
In 1995, the Audit Commission undertook a wideranging
review of the Fire Service in
England and Wales and called for a review of the Standards of Fire Cover and to shift
the emphasis from ‘fighting fires’ to ‘preventing fires based on research’. They
suggested that Fire Safety Promotion should be regarded as a statutory duty and not

be optional. The review was aimed at making the Fire Service more responsive to the
needs of the public and to make them more efficient in what they did. This was in
direct response to the fact that there had been a rise in the number of fires and
accidents over the years, which coincided with the lack of investment from Central
Government, who had not set any National targets for the Fire Service in the
prevention of fires or managing the fire risk. Various Governments had played little
regard to the Fire Service over the years tending to focus public funds in areas
deemed to be of more interest to the public i.e. the Police, NHS, and Education.
Following on from this review the Home Office in 1997 in the Safe as Houses Report
detailed a strategy for Fire Safety promotion involving the community. They indicated
that they believed that ‘most domestic fires are preventable arising mostly as a result
of lack of care or inappropriate behaviour’. They suggested that all Community Fire
Safety Education programs should focus on three core messages: prevention,
detection, escape behaviour.
They also identified a lack of planning both locally and nationally for fire safety
education with a lot of Campaigns being duplicated across Brigades. They
recommended the need for a National Fire Safety Centre (NFSC) to oversee a
national program of fire activity on an annual calendar basis, which Brigades can run
locally with material provided by them. The NFSC would also devise a website that
contained a variety of information and materials that local Fire Brigades could use as
they go about their work in communicating the fire safety message across the
community they serve.
In 2001 the responsibility for the fire service was transferred from the Home Office in
June 2001 to the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions
(DLTR) and subsequently the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) in May
2002. The change in ownership reveals the complex, bureaucratic and changing
environment in which the Fire Service has had to work. The Fire service has perhaps
undergone more change in the last 15 years than it has experienced in the previous
30 years. The organizational structure of the LFRS (Appendix 10) reveals the
bureaucratic and reporting nature of just one of the 47 Brigades that exist in the

Country and how more people are employed in the administrative running of the
service rather than at the grass roots i.e. fire fighting level.
In 2001, Sir George Bain conducted an Independent Review of the Fire Service and
highlighted the need and urgency for change and suggested that the Government
needed to take a central role in setting a clear strategic direction for the Fire Service
and that the current Standards of Fire Cover was dated and that the focus needed to
change to prevention of fires and managing the risk of fires from purely fighting fires
or protecting commercial buildings. He recommended that resources needed to be
redeployed in to areas of Fire Prevention, Community Safety and Fire Safety
Enforcement.
In 2003, the Government set out a White Paper (Our Fire and Rescue Service)
looking to address the concerns highlighted by Sir George Bain. The Government
acknowledged that an outdated legislative framework, an outdated structure, weak
institutional support, and insufficient focus on risk prevention had hampered fire
service. The focus now had to change from fire suppression to fire prevention, from
protecting buildings to protecting people. They also renamed the Fire Service to The
Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) to reflect the entirety of the work they engaged in to
include emergency rescue service. The government laid out their strategic vision in
this document and detailed how they would do this.
On the back of the White Paper, the Government repealed the Fire Service Act of
1947 and updated the framework with the Fire Service Act 2004, putting a statutory
duty on the FRS to promote Fire Safety by engaging with the community. This
fundamental change means that the FRS are now governed to think and promote
Fire Safety and to also engage with the community to sell the Fire Safety message,
which they may have done or not in the past.
This change in emphasis and focus is important to consider as it accounts for why
there has been a lack of fundamental research in the area of fire safety and its
prevention in the home and the community. The DFSC emerged against this
background, and whilst fires had happened in the past from unattended divas, the

FRS had never conducted a campaign to prevent such fires, as there was no
statutory duty to do this.
The change in the FSA 2004 has made campaigns such as the DFSC more of a
reality and it is hoped my evaluation of the Campaign will act as a guide to other
Brigades looking at selling the Fire Safety message to other communities where
there is a significant fire threat, particular to that specific community.
The words of Paul Dickens (Arson Task Force Leicestershire Fire & Rescue
Service) quite aptly summarise why there has been a lack of research
See Appendix 12.
4.3 Fire Safety Education (FSE)
The DFSC is an example of a campaign that raises awareness of a fire threat
amongst a particular community i.e. the Hindu Gujarati Community of Leicester and
its primary aim is to raise the education levels of that threat.
Literature in the FSE arena is very much a growing and evolving field. The fire and
life educator’s body of knowledge is progressing from oral history and program
descriptions to the stage of adapting relevant knowledge from other disciplines
(Powell and Appy, 1997).
The focus in the last 25 years has changed from writing about fire fighting techniques
and fire engineering to now looking at how to minimize the risk of fire by changing
behaviour, attitude and psychology of individuals who deliberately or carelessly start
a fire. It was regarded that fire engineering had made the most of the major gains in
fire safety and that any further research in fire losses needed to come from changes
in human behaviour. This belief was reinforced by statistics that showed that the vast
majority of fatalities came from residential fires, where building codes were less
stringent (i.e. no compulsory need for installation of smoke alarms or sprinkler
systems unlike with commercial public buildings), and that the main causes of fire

were not mechanical or system faults but were down to human behaviour (Anna
Chalmers, 2000).
Anna Chalmers (2000) identified three main strategies highlighted to prevent fire
injuries/fatalities: ·
Educate, hopefully persuade, people to change unsafe behaviours
· Enforce safe behaviours through law
· Provide automatic protection by product or environmental design (Powell and
Appy, 1997).
These can be subdivided into either aiming to prevent fire or to protect people once a
fire had started by changing behaviour or the environment where a fire can take
place (Home Office, 1980).
The DFSC is an example of a campaign that aims to prevent fire from starting in the
first place by persuading the audience to engage in safe behaviour when lighting
divas and to not leave diva’s unattended or near materials that can easily catch fire,
or on surfaces that are unstable. It also highlights the main areas where a fire can
start, showing pictorially the areas of concern with a view to educating and
encouraging safe behaviour from the target audience when it came to lighting Diva’s.
The categorization system commonly used in the fire safety literature is based on that
of vulnerable groups of which ethnic minorities are identified as one such group,
along with children under 5 years, older people, lower socioeconomic
groups, and
rural population.
In a report titled ‘Improving the fire safety knowledge of vulnerable groups’, Anna
Chalmers (2000) surveys over 200 items from the UK, New Zealand and the USA to
explore what is the best way to target these vulnerable groups. A lot of her report
makes interesting reading, but what is clear is that she found little published
information on fire safety and ethnic minority groups in comparison to the other

vulnerable group categories. She came to the conclusion that the same strategies
that apply to the lower socioeconomic
groups can be assumed to be appropriate to
target ethnic minority groups.
Her main findings in this area were: ·
There is very little published on ethnic minority groups and fire safety (point
4.3.1).
· One encounters frequent advice to print educational materials on a range of
languages or to rely on using pictures than words to get a message across
(Gamache 1997) (4.3.2).
· Specific program details are often not discussed and cites a program directed
to American Indians, which concentrated on reducing the risk of inflammable
liquids where there was a 65% fire reduction (Stamps et al, 1980) (4.3.3).
· Community involvement in design and implementation of programs would
presumably have a positive effect on ethnic minority groups, which is the same
approach used to target lower socioeconomic
groups (4.3.4).
· The relationship between race and fire risks is unclear. It appears that any link
between the two can be accounted for by other socioeconomic
factors,
notably income (4.3.5).
· Gunther (1981, cited in Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1997b)
considered the relationship between race and risk of fire. He found once
income was accounted, there were no significant risks between race and fire
risk (4.3.6)
She also documents the need to have improved evaluation systems for public FSE
programs (not just for ethnic minority groups but all vulnerable groups). Proof of the
effectiveness of campaigns can range from good to weak, such as knowing if a new
program has been introduced, to strong such as finding a reduction in fire fatalities. In
area of evaluation she cites the work of Scheanman et al (1990), Scheanman and
Gunther (1997) and Hall (1997).

Shaenman et al (1990) devised a ‘Hierarchy of Evaluation’ which the Community
Task Force of Britain recommended using as a basis for evaluation of FSE
campaigns: Table
1 Hierarchy
of evaluation measures for community fire safety
Outreach Knowledge gain Behavioural change Environmental
change
End impact
Getting the safety
information to the
target audience and
reaching enough of the
audience to make a
difference.
The audience must
understand the
material and
remember it. It must
add to their knowledge
or remind them what
they know.
The target audience
must act on the
information.
Actions to improve
safety of the home
need to be done
correctly and the
changes maintained.
The behavioural or
environmental
changes must have a
significant impact on
the types of problem
that actually occur and
not be overwhelmed
by factors beyond
control or not
addressable by
community fire safety
Aspect measured Examples of evaluation measures
End results Number of deaths, injuries, fire or financial loss
Behaviour or the environment Percentage of households with a smoke detector, etc
Awareness, knowledge Percentage of public who know how to extinguish chip pan fires,
know about 'Get Out, Stay Out' or 'Stop, Drop and Roll' messages,
have escape plans, etc
Extent of programme outreach For example:
% of population receiving education materials
% of older people visited by trained carers
% of school children who received fire safety education
Strongest proof
Likeability and usage of
programmes
Percentage of teachers who think the programme materials are good
and use them, etc
Weakest proof Institutional change Introduction of safety curriculum in schools, adding another agency to
aid delivering the message, etc

Hall (1997) writing for NFPA, suggested three questions for evaluation: was the
target audience reached by the strategy; did the strategy change the target audience
as intended; and did the fire problem decline? The most difficult part of evaluation is
to determine if the fire problem declined due to education. It requires comparing fire
death rates before and after the program.
Two factors can skew the results, fire loss rates will vary over time and the ‘program
effect’ may inspire participants to be more fire conscious and therefore more fire safe
and thus they may not have learnt anything.
Schaenman and Gunther (1997) list a range of factors that can affect program results
such as: uncontrollable factors (such as age, income level, education, change in
industry or movement of people in an area who are more likely to have or not have
fires etc), semiuncontrollable
factors (condition of housing, hazards of new
technology etc) and starting conditions (severity of fire problem, previous exposure
of population to fire education, current level of smoke detector installation and
maintenance).
She also has a section highlighting some of the critical success factors in public fire
safety education programs on the basis of research, which are worth noting:·
NFPA funded a study in 1974 determined that fire prevention messages must
be explicit, positive, showing the desired behaviour in the context where action
should occur. (The DFSC follows this ) (4.3.7)
· A 1975 study commissioned by the US Office of Planning and Education
examined 15 fire education programs and isolated two key features. These
were targeting education at local fire problems and involving the community in
program development and implementation. The study highlighted for an
individual to change unsafe behaviour, the problem must be perceived as
local, immediate and personally relevant. In addition, delivery or reinforcement
of the prevention message by a community leader increased the probability of
acceptance (Strother, 1975 cited in Strother and Buchbinder, 1980). (The
DFSC follows this). (4.3.8)

· The public should not be overloaded with information, and they should not be
scarred into action: emphasizing fear as a motivator can lead to an inability to
cope the blocking of the threat, rather than positive action. (4.3.9)
· The need to have targeted programs is a recurring and consistent theme in the
FSE literature. Programs need to be targeted and well funded to have
maximum impact. Successful targeting is often helped by conducting market
research which isolates not only who is at risk, but also how they perceive the
risk, so that fire safety education can appeal to an existing concern in the
community to be targeted (Seaton, 1996) (4.3.10)
· Community involvement in public fire safety education has been found to be
highly effective in regard to programs for various target groups, such as the
elderly and those in lower economic groups. Community involvement allows a
program to be designed to respond to the needs of the community from their
perspective, reaching those other members of the community who need the
information. A degree of ownership entails from the involved community, which
is likely to lead to more effort being put in to running and responding to the
program as a participant. High level of community involvement can lead to a
program contacting more personal contacts. (4.3.11)
· Fear unless, continually maintained, does not have a positive or long term
effect on behaviour as reported by Strother and Buchbinder (1980) and
Powell and Appy (1997) (4.3.12)
· In recent times, fire safety education has become ‘less preachy’ focusing more
on ‘teaching behaviours’ through the use of diagrams (Powell and Appy ,1997)
(4.3.13).
· Lopes (1997) details specific selection techniques in teaching safety education
programs these are : limit messages, reinforce messages, use positive
images, avoid valuedladen
messages, correct myths and misinformation,
begin with awarenessraising
messages informing of the hazards before
moving on to the education message of what to do, time the message using
teachable moments that are relevant, when external events heighten
interest.(4.3.14)

·
It is worth noting her findings as I can take on board her comments and tailor my
research to fill some of the gaps already identified and to ensure that the DFSC is
able to build on what little research there is in the field regarding ethnic fire safety
campaigns. The DFSC is just one example of a targeted ethnic minority campaign.
However the findings may not be applicable to all ethnic minority groups, but the
approach used may confirm some hypothesis identified in the research thus far i.e.
that the same strategy for lower socioeconomic
groups can be used for targeting
ethnic minority groups.
4.4 Ethnic Marketing & Marketing
The DFSC could be classed as an ethnic marketing campaign, as it is specifically
aimed at a specific ethnic group. The literature in the area is vast and most of the
discussions and debates are really beyond the scope of this study. For a detailed
discussion of problems, issues and definitions of ethnicity see Nwanko (1998), Burton
(2002), who give a great overview of this topic. Like the FSE literature it is very much
an evolving and growing field. What is important to realize is that many commercial
companies engage in specific and tailored marketing to identify, profitable ethnic
minority groups.
In light of the growth of ethnic minority populations around the world many
commercial companies have created dedicated marketing departments to engage in
ethnic marketing. As markets become more competitive, turbulent and fragmented
around the world, many companies are looking to market products and services to
identified ethnic minority groups to secure additional revenues and profit.
Over half of Fortune 500 companies in the USA have some form of ethnic marketing
programs (McDermott, 1994) offering tailored advertising, customized promotion,
new product lines to account for the growth in ethnic minority groups, whom make up
25% of the US population. This market is predicted to grow to 47.2 in 2050
(Patterson, 2001).

The UK has yet to follow the USA in this area, with only a few companies scratching
the surface, with the larger more identified, ethnic groups such as the Indian
population or the Black/African population being targeted. Such identified market
segments have their own unique, cultures, values, traditions and norms which make
them ideal candidates for certain product or service categories, for example Western
Union and BT ( to cite two examples) engage in frequent bespoke marketing to these
groups allowing for them to talk and send money back to family or relatives in their
country of origin. Admittedly not a lot of companies have dedicated resources or
strategies in this area as the ethnic minority population accounts for only 7.9% of the
population in the UK (2001 Census) in comparison to 33% in the USA (Stern, 1999;
Williams 1995), although it is growing annually by 2 to 3% in the UK.
What is important to realize is that whilst commercial companies haven’t engaged in
ethnic marketing on a large scale, there is a distinct need for the government to do
so. Particularly where there is an identified issue affecting minority groups in the
areas health, social welfare provision, crime, injury and risk prevention. The
Government has a duty of care to communicate information to all its publics.
It is not surprising that the Government has taken the lead in this area, more so than
private companies. The emphasis between the private sector and the public sector is
much different, with the former motivated by profit and the later motivated in delivery
of public services and/or goods to reflect the diverse needs of its publics, who pay for
the provision through local and national income tax. The growth in ethnic minority
populations across the country makes this need even greater.
Without going into the differing areas of Government policy and campaigns targeting
minority groups, it is evident that there is “no one, size fits all model” that can be used
to communicate information to the varying different ethnic minority groups. Given that
the Government have a finite amount of resources to communicate to all its publics, it
has to be seen to promote and deliver its services efficiently across all it public
groups. Few campaigns have been written about or discussed in depth and to be
able to make direct comparisons are quite difficult due to their varying backgrounds
and the different ethnic audiences they are trying to communicate to.

Project Dil, is an example of one NHS Health Campaign that targeted the South
Asian Community of Leicester in the area of improving awareness of Coronary heart
disease (CHD) amongst the Asian community (Bhavsar,2004). Health promotion like
fire safety promotion has a key role in improving behaviour and to get the message
across to this community, key leads in the community were identified (religious,
social,voluntary) and recruited as peer educators. They were trained and educated to
take the message out to others in the community and a total of 45 hours of training
was delivered to the community. The project has been successful due to working in
partnership with the community and is looking to become a mainstream NHS
program. What is worth noting is that there are lots of examples of campaigns in the
government arena targeting ethnic minority groups and the success of most of them
relies on some form of engagement with people from that community in either
program design, development , implementation .
The Governments advertising agency COI Communications, published a research
document called the ‘Common Good Research Guide (August 2003) – Fresh insights
in to hard to reach audiences’ which looks at attitudes of ethnic minority communities
towards communications. The research is relevant to all government departments
and public bodies. It was compiled on the basis a large qualitative study with a wide
range of socioeconomic
groups and members of the Asian (Bangladeshi, Pakistani,
Indian), Chinese and Black (African and Caribbean) communities.
I have summarized the main findings from their research, which can be highlighted in
use in the DFSC: 1.
Ethnic minority communities shared many interests and media habits as with
the general population and this is more true for the younger population (4.4.1)
2. Specialist media are needed to access key sub groups such as women, older
people who speak little or no English (4.4.2).
3. Specialist media allow communication to the whole family in Asian and
Chinese communities, which is rarely achieved through mainstream channels
(4.4.3)

4. Local and regional media are very important to access ethnic minority
communities as well as editorial interest (4.4.4).
5. Want to see appealing images that their families can relate to, and they do not
want to continually exploited for ethnic identity (4.4.5)
6. In targeted campaigns using specialist media, ethnic and religious identity can
be used enhance the relevance and closeness of the communities. This might
include using a credible spokesperson from the community, making reference
to key religious festivals or cultural symbols, or including an identifiable and
likeable portrait of family life (4.4.6).
7. Government communicators could develop relationships with local
organizations and individuals to enhance the effectiveness of distribution and
generate word of mouth publicity through existing community networks (4.4.7).
8. Community groups need to be seen as a target audience in their own right and
not just a channel of distribution (4.4.8).
9. Marketers should consider developing targeted campaigns around cultural and
religious celebrations, hobbies and past times specific to ethnic subgroups
(4.4.9)
10.Marketers should partner with local shops and services for distribution and
publicity (4.4.10)
11.Marketers should consider developing publicity materials and campaigns in
partnership with community organizations (4.4.11)
12.The government was considered to be an appropriate sponsor of compliance,
social good and welfare state information (4.4.12)
13.For the end user, government communicators should produce:
a. Summary versions of leaflets in straightforward language (4.4.13)
b. Bilingual leaflets rather than translations (4.4.14)
c. Leaflets with strong visual and pictorial element (4.4.15)
d. Audio and video material in English and Mother Tongue (4.4.16).
The above is only a summary of the main identified planning and communication
issues when targeting ethnic minority groups as born by their qualitative research.

4.5 Summary of Literature Review
To conclude the literature has revealed why there has been a lack of specific Fire
research and campaigns in the fire prevention arena due to the regulation governing
the fire service. The change in emphasis from fighting fires and protecting buildings
to fire prevention and protecting people will mean more research and campaigns will
be forthcoming in the future, like the DFSC.
The literature in the FSE arena highlights that the link between ethnicity and fire is
unclear and that it is assumed that the strategy for promoting to lower socioeconomic
groups would work with ethnic minority groups i.e. the use of community in
designing, developing and implementing the campaign. It is also mentioned that there
is often a problem with FSE with regard to evaluating if campaigns worked due to the
program effect, or a variety uncontrollable factors, which are hard to quantify or
measure. There is also a lack of evaluations of programs in terms of awareness or
attitudes from the recipients of the campaign, with most campaigns being solely
judged on the number of fires reduced or call outs, pre and post campaign.
Finally the literature in ethnic marketing revealed that the government has a moral,
financial and economic obligation and therefore a need, to promote to all its publics
information in areas of health, social welfare, crime, injury and risk prevention. The
COI Communications Common research guide highlighted the main points to
consider when communicating messages to ethnic minority communities. The
document was largely produced to help the government and its agencies on what
strategies to employ when targeting ethnic minority groups.

5.0 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The literature reveals some gaps and some assumptions with regard to fires and
ethnicity, in the wider topic areas that the DFSC sits. The DFSC is an example of an
ethnic fire safety education program and I aim to use the DFSC to build on what little
published information/theory there is. I hope to confirm the assumptions already
made that use of the community in program design, running and implementation will
be regarded to be just as effective for ethnic minority markets as it is for lower socioincome
groups in targeting the fire safety message. I also aim to look at the attitudes
and opinions of the program recipients to the DFSC, the approach used by LFRSES
and the outcomes of the campaign, so as to be able to comment on its success.
The questions have been revised to reflect what has been gathered from the
literature:
1. How much has the DFSC raised awareness of the Diva as fire threat, amongst
the Hindu Gujarati Community of Leicester?
2. Have the changed attitudes and/or behaviour with regard to lighting divas
amongst this audience?
3. What were the outcomes from the DFSC is it consistent with the theory?
6.0 METHODOLOGY
6.1 Research Strategy
In order to bring to light the proposed research questions it is necessary to select an
appropriate and relevant strategy. Since the main aim of the research is deductive
(Saunders et al, 2000), descriptive (Yin, 1984), exploratory (Yin, 1984), cross
sectional (Saunders et al, 2000), there is a need to attain both qualitative and
quantative data, using a mixed methodology.

The Survey approach was the preferred strategy as it allowed for a panoramic,
holistic view, a breadth of coverage and to get information direct from the horse’s
mouth (Densecombe, 2003). In our case, the target audience who had been
identified to target with a fire safety prevention message i.e. the Hindu Gujarati
community of Leicester. Researchers who adopt the survey strategy are able to use
a whole range of methods, within this strategy (questionnaires, interviews,
documents and observation) to elicit empirical data at a particular moment in time
(Densecombe, 2003). The survey approach is fairly low cost and can generate a
large amount of standardized data, in a short space of time, offering a ‘snap shot’
cross sectional view (Saunders et al, 2000).
In our case I chose the use of documents, interviews and questionnaires to get an
overview of the case. Such data will allow me find out ‘who’ was involved, ‘what’
happened, ‘when’ and ‘where’ did the DFSC take place, ‘what ‘the outcomes were
from the perspectives of the audience and the LFRSES.
If I wanted to know ‘how’
and ‘why’ the DFSC worked I would lean towards using a case study strategy as it
encourages the use of multiple methods of data collection in an attempt to go in to
more depth and explain the likely hood of causal factors (Yin, 1984).
Our purpose was to ‘document’, ‘describe’ and ‘explore’ the DFSC phenomenon,
rather than explain it. Another fundamental reason for not using the case study
method was that the DFSC was still taking place at the time of my investigation and
that the full outcomes of the Campaign have been evolving as my investigation has,
such that certain documents pertaining to outcomes have only come to fruition in the
last few months.
However by using multiple methods as part of the survey design I could elicit a
considerable amount of information, which would improve the quality of the research
and show a variety of different perspectives at a particular point in time. Where the
methods converge through a process called Triangulation (Densecombe, 2003), it
may be possible to compare, contrast the data and information that is found, without
having to rely on just one single research method, adding a certain amount of validity
to my findings.

It was not possible to use other strategies such as experiments, ethnography, and
action research as they do not offer the depth, the breadth or coverage and lend
themselves more to smallscale
qualitative research.
6.2 Sampling
I decided to engage in nonprobability
sampling, as it was not feasible to include a
large number of examples in the study. The total Hindu population in Leicester is
41,248, of which 7,000 had received a direct flyer on the DFSC and what was
needed was a way of targeting a cross section of the population in the most efficient
and time saving manner. By using purposive sampling techniques (Densecombe,
2003) I was able to hand pick a specific event i.e. Holi, March 17 th , 6pm to 10pm,
where it was known by me (because of my cultural roots), that the target population
of the DFSC would likely to be present i.e. it is a key Hindu Religious event. By using
this approach I was able to concentrate on instances, which would display a wide
variety of balanced responses that could be generalised to the rest of the population.
The sampling frame is an objective list of the population (Densecombe, 2003). .
Whilst a sampling frame could have been used to target the Hindu Gujarati
population of Leicester (could have used Census lists or Community list of members),
this method was not employed due to cost, time and the likely response you would
have had from the target audience.
The best approach was to use Holi, where all members of the family are likely to be
present, who were most likely to be the recipients of the DFSC. I decided to interview
a large but equally balanced quota of genders and ages with an aim of attaining 100
questionnaires from this event by using my mum and myself as the fluent bilingual
interviewers.

6.3 Research Methods
1 st Phase – An in depth interview (see Appendix 14) was arranged and conducted
with Steve Kisby, the Fire Fighter who came up with the idea to explore what was the
reasoning and motivations for the campaign and what kind of benefits had been
received. I chose the option to use a structured interview
2nd phase To
interview a cross section of Gujarati Hindu residents at the religious
event of Holi with the use of a structured Questionnaire (see Appendix 15). The
questions were carefully constructed so as to elicit the right answers to help us
explore the DFSC phenomenon further.
A series of open and closed questions were asked with predetermined categories
and rating scales to elicit a wide number of views on pertinent aspects of the
Campaign. The questionnaire had to be devised simplistically, as it had to be
translated in to Gujarati so that respondents who couldn’t speak English could be
included. The questions were carefully constructed to find out if attitudes, opinions
and behaviour had changed and for those who had not seen the Campaign, a leaflet
was shown to them, so their views could be included.
3 rd phase – to collect a series of documents (Appendix 19
& 1920)
– internal,
external and view points from personnel involved in the Campaign to be able to
comment on the outcomes and the approach used by LFRSES
– this has been
ongoing from the start of the project, with more documentation concerning outcomes
becoming available in the last few months. These illustrate information from the
perspective of the LFRSES.
6.4 Data Collection Methods
Face to face interviews were used, as they were the most appropriate method to elicit
the information we needed from the target audience. Face to face interviews offers
the immediate means to validate the data and the researcher can sense if they are
getting false information by looking at body cues that is not possible with methods

such as postal questionnaire or a telephone survey (Denscombe, 2003). The facetoface
contact allowed us to select the appropriate audience for our questionnaire.
From the outset, I looked to interview a cross section of ages and genders to be able
to generalize our findings to the rest of the population. A population that is known to
me and my mum (who I enlisted for help – see next section), by our cultural and our
ancestral heritage.
6.5 Managing response rates
In order to minimize the likelihood of response from the target audience, it was
decided to interview the program recipients direct, via facetoface
questionnaires
instead of sending questionnaires direct in the post to recipients. Postal
questionnaires have a predominantly low response and when it comes to information
that is of a cultural or sensitive issue, it is hard to gauge how many recipients would
respond positively or even respond. Also by engaging on a postal method, you would
have to know where the Hindu Gujarati community, of Leicester live; not all residents’
householders living in the Belgrave or Melton Rd are from the Hindu faith and whilst
census or electoral lists could be used, it was deemed to costly and timely for this
research project.
Face to face interviews were conducted on Friday 17 th March 2005 at the religious
event of Holi in Cossington Park, off Belgrave Road, Leicester. I knew that a large
number of Hindu Gujarati residents would be coming to the park to see the large
bonfire that is traditionally lit to celebrate the event, with all their family. I knew this,
from previously attending such events as a member of the Hindu faith. I also knew
that I would have a short window opportunity to attain information from the program
recipients at this event i.e. three hours, while they come to see the fire display. I also
knew that a multitude of people would be present, of all age ranges and genders
allowing a good cross section of the population to be picked randomly.

I enlisted the help of my mum, who is fluent in both Gujarati and English, so as to
generate as many responses as possible. I suggested that my mum would interview
all the female respondents, as it preferable for a man not to speak to Hindu woman
on her own, without her family or husband being present 8 . I myself interviewed the
male respondents and by being culturally alert to the gender interviewing issues, we
were able to limit the lack of response to less than 1%. In fact, most respondents
were very much interested in giving their opinions on the DFSC, as they saw it ‘as a
good thing for the Fire Service to do’, even those who had not specifically seen or
heard of the campaign. By conducting the survey that my mum and I did, we were
raising the issue of the diva threat to them.
Overall we were able to interview a total of 104 questionnaires from an equal number
of genders and a less proportional, but representative sample of age groups across
the male and female categories, over a 4hour
period.
6.6 Ethical, Political, Legal Considerations
The research did go pretty much to plan, with a few modifications along the way. I
initially made contact with Amanda Kelly Pike in January 2005, who detailed who was
involved in the Campaign. I had difficulties in getting hold of the Steve Kisby due to
the Fire Fighters working on shifts and with Mina Patel, Diversity Community Advisor
who was away. But once I got in touch with Steve and Mina, the work snowballed.
Mina Patel advised me to write to David Webb, Chief Fire Officer of LFRS, outlining
my project and what information I needed and how I could help them evaluate the
DFSC (Appendix 13). He put me in touch with the relevant people, so I could access,
view and cite relevant internal documents. In fact after the necessary permissions
had been granted it was extremely easy to access the data I needed.
Mina Patel was extremely helpful as was Steve Kisby in identifying who the key
players were and I was able to speak to a large number of people on the DFSC. I
was able to get in touch with the designer of the flyer, Minal Sikotra, a DMU
8 Singh, P (2004), “Cultural awarenessunderstanding
our multicultural
society” – Kent Fire & Rescue Service

Placement Student and her views on the Campaign have been cited (Appendix 18),
Rashmikant Joshi, one of the Community leaders was also helpful in explaining their
role and his thoughts are also cited (see Appendix 18)
With regard to conducting the field work, I sought confirmation of my proposed
questionnaire with Mina Patel who gave suggestions on what questions I should
include and what to take out. After liaising with Mina, I took out a question relating to
whether people were more aware of the DFSC as a result of the 5 people who died in
the Sharma Fire (Appendix 3) or as a result of the Campaign itself. It was made
known to me that the Community was still upset by the death of the Sharma family
and that it was too sensitive an issue to include in the research at that time.
This question was the only one that was removed. By seeking approval of the
questionnaire from the Fire Service, I was able to compile a survey that was ethically
sound and also elicit the key information that the Fire Service were after for
evaluating the attitudes and opinions of the recipients of the Campaign. I was also
able to establish myself as a credible researcher in the field undertaking an analysis
on behalf of LFRS.
Finally coming from the same background as the target audience allowed me to
consider the appropriate and relevant methods to employ accounting for all the
cultural and political issues that are likely to arise.
6.7 Problems encountered
The first problem encountered was in ascertaining information regarding the market,
as my area of study is highly focused and not having statistics on how many Hindu’s
light diva’s made it hard to evaluate the potential fire threat. My estimation may be
too high or just too low. The recording of divas has been poor both nationally and
locally, with diva fires being subsumed in the wider candle fire category. They are not
the same thing. The good news is Divas have started to be recorded as a particular
type of fire a few months prior to the Campaign at LFRS.

I also experienced problems when conducting the literature review, as little had been
written specifically on ethnicity and fire safety behaviour and that the only link
associated with the two was based on income and the fact that there was evidence to
suggest that a large proportion of nonwhite
people had no smoke alarm at home.
However I was unable to confirm the link between income and levels of awareness or
change in behaviour in my survey, as it is culturally accepted to not questions
regarding income to such an audience. This is something I am aware of, as I come
from such a community. Even if such a question had been asked, it is likely that
many would have refused to give this information or indeed tell the truth, skewing the
acceptability of these results.
One other problem I encountered was interpreting the questionnaire in to Gujarati in
verbatim. Despite doing a pretrial
questionnaire with my mum who doublechecked
my pronunciation and dialogue. It was virtually impossible to practice every response
for all the different types of respondents and their differing, personal and sociodemographic
circumstances. Hence there is likely to be some bias in the collecting
and recording of data. It is also likely that some results may be affected by the
interviewer affect, where responses vary according to who is conducting the
interview, based on how they perceive the interviewer.
To minimize the interpretation effect, I enlisted the help of my mum (who is fluent in
both Gujarati and English), who interviewed the bulk of her respondents in Gujarati. I
made sure that my mum interviewed all the female respondents and I surveyed all
the males, this was done on purpose to manage the response rate and encourage
female respondents to partake in the survey. It is unlikely that many females would
have taken part in a survey if the interviewer was a male and unknown to them and
this is truer for the older female respondents. To overcome the possible interviewer
affect, I made sure that I used the same consistent introduction and approach, when
interviewing the respondent; the same was true of my mum. Fortunately, as both my
mum and me as we came from the same community as the program recipients we
were able to build rapport instantly. We also had the credibility of working in

association with two credible partners involved in the DFSC i.e.Shree Sanatan
Mandir and the LFRS.
6.8 What would I do differently?
If I were to do the project again, I would look to interview people on a different day
and at a different time as this would have allowed access to more people who may or
may not have had exposure to the DFSC and hence the research and survey may
have been different. However, due to the constraints of time and available resources
a decision was taken from the outset to survey people at the Holi event, where it was
known that 99% of the audience would have been of Gujarati origin. This date and
festival was chosen as it allowed me to attain the best amount of responses in a very
short space of time, allowing for a subsequent analysis to take place at a specific
point in time, allowing for an appropriate end point for evaluation of the Campaign.
I would recommend that my survey is conducted again in a few months time, to see if
the message has been prolonged and sustained and that people haven’t forgotten
about the issue or fire threat. This would also test the problems associated with the
program effect, with people being more fire conscious as result of recently seeing or
hearing about a Campaign. As it is quite probable that the reason why the awareness
levels were high for the Campaign was the fact that the target audience had received
communication just prior to the Holi event, where a hand held distribution took place
via the Fire Service.

7.0 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
7.1 Primary Data Analysis
Having attained a vast amount of both primary and secondary data over a short
space of time, it was important that I objectively analysed the data. The primary data
elicited from the questionnaires was direct from the recipients of the program and
their views are paramount to judging the success of the DFSC from their own,
individual perspective. One openended
question was included on the questionnaire
to record individual’s comments on any aspect of the campaign (see Appendix 17).
19 comments came from a possible of 104 respondents (18% had a comment) and
these can be broken down and coded in a manner that gives some meaning and
purpose in line with the research objectives, summarized in to 5 categories: Area
Number of Responses Per Cent
1. Changed attitude/behaviour 11 58
use
less ghee 3 16
install
smoke alarm 3 16
keep
clothing away 2 11
will
not leave Diva Unattended 3 16
2. Liked Design of Flyer/Poster 3 16
Use
of Mandir 2 11
Eye
catching, use of colour 1 5
3. Did not like design of flyer 4 21
Too
much information 2 11
Use
of Mandir (not appropriate to FSE) 1 5
Should
be brighter 1 5
4. Should have Fire Safety demonstrations 4 21
at
school / or on TV 1 5
at
events/religious get togethers 2 11
5. Fire Service working in partnership 1 5

What is clearly evident from their comments is that 58% cited themselves as having
changed their behaviour as a result of the DFSC, which is a positive outcome, with
16% saying they will not leave a Diva unattended and another 16% having been
spurned in to buying a smoke alarm as a direct consequence.
As for the approach used by the LFRSES,
the audience has recognized the
partnership approach at 5%. The flyer design is favourable at 16% and the only
reasons for not liking the Flyer was because of too much information 11%,
or the
use of the Temple 5%,
which contradicts the data from those who cited liking the
poster for using the Temple 11%.
Admittedly, these comments are only a few and cannot be generalized across the
population. Table 2 shows the Gender distribution of the sample by age category
interviewed. Due to the constraints of time, it was not possible to get an equal quota
of genders per category, as we only had 4 hours to elicit as many varied answers to
the questionnaire as we could.
Table 2 – Gender distribution of Hindu respondents interviewed at Holi.
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
As the survey data is predominantly about opinions, values and attitudes it was not
necessary to conduct a detailed descriptive analysis of the data, as we were not
looking for cause or affect of the variables or an association between variables or for
any amount of depth in the data to explain what is going on.
0
014
1524
2534
3544
4554
5564
65 yrs
Age Categories
Percentage
Male
Female

However if you look at the findings from the overall survey, where I have summarized
the results by gender (Appendix 16A), the findings are similar in the area of changed
behaviour 57%
of Males and 58% Females would change their behaviour (see
Figure 1 – Q4).
Even those Males and Females who had not come across the DFSC, when shown
the flyer cited that 49% of Males and 51% Females would change their behaviour
(see Figure 2 – Q13).
There is a considerable difference in the ranked opinions across the genders on what
they liked or disliked about the poster (see Figure 3 & 4, Q12), with Males preferring
ease of language at 255 level, use of Mandir at 85 level, whereas Females preferred
use of Mandir at 300 level, followed closely by use of colours at 295. (High number =
high liking, low number = low liking)
Figure 1 – Change in gender behaviour Figure 2 – Has leaflet changed gender behaviour
Q13. Has the leaflet changed behaviour
for those who have not seen DFSC?
51%
49%
Male Female
Q4. Change in Behavior as a result
of Campaign?
57%
58%
Male Female

300
250
200
150
100
50
Figure 3 Female
ranked opinions on leaflet
Q12. Female opinions on leaflet by ranked order
scale
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Poor Excellent
Scale (Poor to Excellent)
a) language
b) colours
c) design mandir use
d) ease of use
Figure 4 Male
ranked opinions on leaflet
Q12. Male opinion on leaflet by ranked order
scale
0
Poor Excellent
Scale (Poor to Excellent)
a) language
b) colours
c) design mandir use
d) ease of use
This is the only area where there is a considerable variance across the gender
categories and these findings may be just appropriate to this sample under
investigation, but it does highlight a difference in opinion across the genders. Or it
could be that the Male respondents were less inclined to rank their opinions on the
categories offered on Q12. However the fact that both genders cited liking the use of
the Temple in the background confirms the need to have visual appealing pictures
when communicating to the ethnic market as per COI comments (4.4.16).
The Genders exhibit similar views in areas such as awareness of the Campaign,
Figure 5, Q1, 65% Male and 69% Female aware (High awareness). Twice the
number of female respondents who did not have smoke alarms prior to the DFSC
went out and bought one at 15% vs. 8% for the Male respondents although more
Figure 6, Q8.

Figure 5 – Awareness of DFSC Figure 6 – Smoke alarm bought due to DFSC
Q8. Bought smoke alarm due to DFSC
20
15
10
5
0
Male Female
Gender
Per Cent
Yes
Q3. What is the Campa ign about
% Male
8
12
8
8
0
11
Diva Diwali Hous e
Fire
Oil Don't
know
Main communication message
Female
Q1.Awareness of DFSC
Male Female
Yes
Gender
Figure 7 – What genders cited the DFSC was
70
69
68
Per Cent
67
66
65
64
63
50 53
12
31
50
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fire
Safety
There are subtle differences in how they perceived what the campaign is about,
Figure 7, Q3 Male 53% and Female 50% cited
Diva.
I have compared and contrasted Q2 and Q14 (Figure 8 & 9) to see if there was a
difference in how the genders heard about the campaign in terms of mode of
communication and how they would prefer to be communicated. Both genders cited
hearing about the campaign from Posters and the Fire Talk at 60% to 70% levels, but
each Gender category had its own preferred method of communication but again the
difference is not truly significant. The Temple (Mandir) was preferred at 35% for
Males and 25% Females, Females preferred Leaflet at 35% Vs Males at 25%. Fire
Talks were cited at 18% for both Genders.

This would confirm that the approach used by LFRSES
was most appropriate to
communicate to the audience regardless of gender and perhaps accounts for why the
campaign maintains high awareness levels across the gender categories.
Figure 8 – Preferred mode of communication vs. how aware of DFSC – Females
Q2 & Q14 Preferred
mode of communication vs how aware of
campaign Females
Children
Press
Community Newsletter
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
TV
Familu/Relatives
le aflet/f lye r
Mand ir
Pos ter
Friends
Other
Fire/talk
Pres s
Commu nity Newsletter
Mode of communication
Percentage
FEMALE
Aware
FEMALE
Preferred
Figure 9 – Preferred mode of communication vs. how aware of DFSC Males
Q2 & Q14 Preferred
mode of communication vs how aware of
campaign Male
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
leaflet/flyer
TV
Familu/Relatives
Mandir
Poster
Friends
Children
Other
Fire/talk
Mode of comm unication Percentage
MALE Aware
MALE Preferred

As the sample was not equally weighted across the age groups, unlike the gender
categories (See Fig 10), it was felt it would be unfair to comment on the variation at
length as it may be particular to the sample that was taken rather than entirely
representative of the whole population. However it can be seen from Figure 11, that
awareness levels of the DFSC are greater for the older age groups: Figure
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
10 – Distribution by Age Groups
Distribution by Age Categories
16 16
4
26
16
19
7
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
014
1524
2534
3544
4554
5564
65 yrs
Age Group
Num ber of respond ents
Figure 11 – Awareness by Age Group
Q3Awareness
by Age Group
55
50 50
75 75
90
80
0
014
1524
2534
3544
4554
5564
65 yrs
Age
P er Cent
The reason for this variation is that it is most likely that the older generations frequent
the Temple more than the younger age groups. The Temple was major a distribution
channel and player in getting the message out to the audience, hence the high
awareness levels in these groups.
Figure 12, shows that there is a degree of variation across age groups on what the
DFSC was about and perhaps different age groups interpreted or heard about the
Campaign differently.
Figure 13 highlights that there is a wide degree of variation in terms of changed
behaviour from different age groups, with the best change coming from 55 – 64 yrs at
90%, 15 – 24 yrs at 80%. The worst category was the 65 years age group, of which
only 20% highlighted that the DFSC had changed their behaviour. Suggesting that
the older age groups may be resistant to change or perhaps stuck in their ways, but a
sample of 7 people is not truly representative and these preliminary findings can be

used as a base for future investigations to ascertain if this is more the shared view of
this age group in the community.
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Figure 12 – What is the Campaign about by age group
Q3. What is Campaign about by
age group
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
014
1524
2534
3544
4554
5564
65 yrs
Age
Per Cent
Fire Safety
Diva
Diw ali
House
Oil
Other
Figure 13 – Behaviour change by age group
Q4 Behaviour
change by age group
50
80
60
54
75
90
20
0
014
1524
2534
3544
4554
5564
65 yrs
Age Group
P er cent
Finally, Figure 14 reveals how the different age groups ranked the DFSC leaflet
according to different categories. There is a considerable difference across the
groups with Ease of Use and Language featuring as the two most important
characteristics of the flyer and this confirms that for a campaign to be effective it
needs to be in a straight forward, easy to understand language (4.4.13)
Figure 14 – Ranked opinions on DFSC Leaflet by age group
Q12 Ranked
opinions on leaflet by age group
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
014
1524
2534
3544
4554
5564
65 yrs
Age Group
Coded Value
Language
Colours
Mandir
Ease

7.2 Qualitative Statements as attained from those involved in the Campaign
Minal Sikotra, Shree Sanatan Mandir (Appendix 4 & 17) recommended using Flyers
and Posters over placing an advert in Leicester Mercury, which was what the LFRSES
were primarily thinking of doing to communicate the Diva safety message. The
approach advocated by them (the Community) was justified as the appropriate
approach given that both Male and Females cited press as the least preferred form of
communication for a Fire Safety message – see Figure 8 and Figure 9, also in
Appendix 16A, Q14.
This confirms that having the Community involved in designing aspects of a program
or its implementation is the best effective way to get a message across to ethnic
groups, this is consistent with the FSE literature. It is perhaps another reason as to
why the Campaign worked so well amongst the Hindu audience as it was
communicated in the appropriate communication mode that was most relevant and
preferred to their needs, from their perspective (Chalmers, 2000) (4.3.11).
The advertising copy was positive, explicit (4.3.7), immediate and personally relevant
(4.3.8). The use of captions around the Temple, showed the desired behaviour in
context (4.3.7). Using religious icons, cultural symbols such as the Mandir, and diva
images on the flyer enhanced the relevance and closeness of the Campaign to the
community, confirming 4.5.6 point. The use of the personal greeting (‘Jai Shree
Krishna’ – a common greeting used in religious Hindu community faith based
literature) along with logo’s of the Shree Sanatan Mandir and LFRS logo’s added
credibility, as it was the Fire Service working with the community, in partnership
(4.4.11), rather than just ‘preach’ a fire prevention message (4.3.13), it taught safe
behaviour through use of relevant diagrams (4.3.13).
Rashmikant Joshi (Appendix 18) – highlights the important nature of the Campaign
and his comments illustrates another reason for the DFSC success i.e. the
Community leaders felt they had a duty to protect their members following the tragic

5 deaths from the unattended Diva. They assisted by sustaining the message
beyond the traditional flyer or poster campaign, by providing free editorial PR (4.4.7),
sustaining the message further, in its annual community brochure (Appendix 8). This
confirms Strother and Buchbinder (1980) finding that delivery of the FSE message by
a Community leader increases the probability of acceptance amongst its audience
(4.3.8). It also illustrates that the Community leaders had a sense of ownership of the
DFSC and were assisting in getting the message out to their members, confirming
the FSE & also the ethnic marketing literature.
Mina Patel highlights the success down to having cultural insight and having the
community involved in the process of the design of the program. She also confirms
that by having a bilingual leaflet translated directly in to Gujarati by one of the
Mandirs members, helped in getting the message out to those who did not
understand or speak English, in a manner that is understandable and personable to
them (4.4.14) Her comments reinforce those made by Rashmikant Joshi.
7.3 In depth interview Steve
Kisby, Fire Fighter, Originator of DFSC
Appendix 14 shows Steve’s overall qualitative answers to a set of questions I asked
him about the Campaign. This was done prior to my initial survey as it was intended
to give me vital descriptive and exploratory details of how and why they came up with
the DFSC.
It is evident from the interview that the program design and concept evolved over
time (Q1) in a working partnership between the LFRS and Shree Sanatan Mandir.
Steve had a few ideas on how best to get the message out: involving setting a
Temple on fire, at the end of the Campaign at a major religious event to get a visual
impact of what an unattended Diva can do and suggested putting the Diva Flyers on
cars (Q6). By involving the Community and having someone who understood the
Community working on the project i.e. Mina Patel, the communication approach and
strategy was revised and refined from the perspective of the Community, in terms of
what was culturally right and ethical to do. This partnership approach is consistent
with both the FSE (4.3.11) and ethnic marketing literature (4.4.11) and a key reason

for the campaigns success. The Community was actively involved in the program,
design and implementation (4.3.11).
Other points he makes, which confirm and reinforce the literature: Mina
invited local community leaders from the Hindu community of Leicester and the press to
the local campaign. Mina organized the venue, the food, and invites to the people. About 50
people including the Mayor came. We presented a slide show about the Diva Safety
Campaign including our mission statement, ‘to make every Gujarati Hindu in Leicester
aware of the Diva Fire threat and the need to have working smoke alarms’…. (Q3) –
confirms the involving and consulting nature of the project and to partner with the
community and develop good working relationships (4.4.7 & 4.3.4)
…Fire Talk presentations at Community religious events at Navratri… (Q3) – This point
confirms the ethnic marketing literature, to consider marketing campaigns at religious
events (4.4.9)
…At Diwali we gave out more flyers and we got Asian retail venues on Melton and Belgrave
Rd to display posters and flyers… (Q3) – This point confirms the need to partner with
local shops for distribution (4.4.10)
It was Fire Rescue Service talking with leaders consent – a joint initiative, if FRS did a
leaflet, it would look different, this poster is from the community perspective and looks
‘Asian’ as Mina would say (Q4) – This point confirms the use of ethnic, religious identity
in special targeted campaigns (4.4.6)
All decided before the Sharma family fire. We were thinking of cancelling due to sensitivity.
But it was the ideal time, as awareness levels were high. Timing is everything it helped us. 5
people died. It’s tragic to do a campaign on the back of this, but it has got the message out. This
comment confirms the need to time a FSE message using teachable moments
as in point 4.3.14.

As Mina comes from the community and speaks the native language, it is easier for her to
access the community leaders and MATV (local Asian TV News channel) (Q5) – This raises
the question, had someone not been from the community in the campaign, would the
Campaign been as successful. Perhaps this could be explored in future work, did the
success derive from having someone from the Community being involved?
Lack of continuity due to working shifts, relied on email
and a lot of goodwill of people (Q6)
This is not part of our job, we have to do training, it is a sideline, in addition for us to do
things, we have to cut corners, we will do if we can. How can we hit as many people as
possible with limited resources and lack of funds! (Q6) the
FSE advocates for a
campaign to work it needs to be well funded for maximum impact (4.3.10), which
raises the question would the DFSC been more successful if more funds and
resources been placed in to this project,
Only way to improve, having the community fire people take it on. If we had people
specifically doing Diva Campaign we could have done more, as we did this alongside our
current tasks, we had to prioritise and make time (Q7) – This illustrates that whilst most
Fire Brigades have now dedicated Community Fire Safety teams who aim to promote
fire safety to the community, they could have assisted in the running of the program
instead of relying on the goodwill of a few people, who proactively managed and ran
the Campaign along with other tasks – Steve Kisby, Mina Patel and Community
leaders of the Hindu community.
Outcomes from the DFSC
Since the campaign – EFRS – has gone to 1 fire in 2 or 3 months, same time we had 2 or 3
fires in the period of Diwali. We actually had 2 Fires in 1 day, this time last year during
Diwali (Q5) – The reduction in fires is an example of a positive end impact and
according to Schaenman et al (1990) hierarchy of evaluation model (FSE literature),
this is the strongest proof of the Campaign working. If this is combined with the data
from the survey of 104 recipients, where behaviour had been cited as changing in
57% Male response and 58% Female response, it is hard to disprove the success of
the DFSC, from the perspective of either the Fire Service or the individual members
point of view.

7.4 Secondary Data Sources
7.5 Fire incident reporting data (Internal document)
See Appendix 19. The data on number of fires over the period of 12 months, prior to
and after the Campaign, highlight a reduction in number of Diva fires, 3 fires occurred
out of 35 which were specifically attributed to Diva fires (8.5% of all fires), with their
being only 2 fires after the Sharma deaths. Of which 1 fire was in the catchment area
of where the DFSC distribution took place i.e. Eastern Station. The same period last
year cannot be compared due to the fact that Divas had been recorded as Candle
fires rather than as Diva fires, as the two are quite different. This would suggest the
campaign has worked according to the Scheanman et al (1990) Hierarchy evaluation
model.
If this is data is consistent with the comments made by Steve Kisby and that a
reduction has been seen in Diva fires. However a number of factors could have could
been attributed to the reduction as Shaenman and Gunther (1997) point out in the
FSE literature, the only way to judge this is to do the survey in 6 months time, to see
if attitudes or behaviour changed in the long term and combine it with the Fire
incident reporting data.
7.6 FIRE Safety Award – Memorandum from LFRS CFA
See Appendix 20. This highlights how good the Campaign was and in recognition
LFRSES
wins the prestigious Fire Safety Award, and the campaign has been
confirmed for National Roll out, by its governing body, ODPM to other Brigades, This
confirms the success of the Campaign. Section 2.7, 2,8 & 2.9 highlights the role I
played in evaluating the effectiveness of the Campaign, through my MBA project.
7.7 Outreach Workers
On the back of the Campaign, LFRS appointed 6 bilingual
outreach workers (App
14, Q14) who spoke a variety of languages to spread the Fire Safety and prevention

message across its diverse publics. It is a direct benefit from the campaign and will
no doubt inspire further campaigns of this nature, in months and years to come.
8.0 CONCLUSION
8.1 Fire Service perspective
· A reduction in Fires was seen and no deaths since the Sharma incident
attributed to Diva’s
· Word of mouth was attained from the Hindu Gujarati residents as and when
Fire Fighters went about doing their home risk assessments (identified
dwellings would be assessed with a view to improving or minimizing the fire
risk i.e. install smoke alarms if necessary)
· Their findings were confirmed in my survey with Hindu Gujarati residents and
from the qualitative statements attained from them and also those who were
involved in the campaign
· Campaign went National, picked up by ODPM, and will now be rolled out
across the country
· Won Fire Service Safety Award on back of the Campaign and the evaluation, I
conducted (my MBA project has been cited in an official memorandum,
Appendix 20).
· Raised profile of LFRS in community, amongst Hindu faith and other
communities, allowing for more focused campaigns in the future
· Huge amount of goodwill and sustained PR from the community who got
actively engaged in this – as witnessed in their community newsletters
· All attained on a shoestring budget.
· Allowed LFRSES
to engage with the community

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