Royal Life Saving WA is in partnership with the South West Sports Centre in Bunbury to offer multicultural women’s swimming lessons.
The aim is for women to build on their current skills, improve health and wellbeing and have the opportunity to engage with other women at their local aquatic facility.
The Royal Life Saving Society WA runs Swim and Survive sessions for women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds who have never had the opportunity to participate in swimming lessons.
It is part of their campaign to reduce the over-representation of this segment of our society in drowning statistics.
A review of drowning data in 2016 showed that over the previous five years there had been 50 drowning deaths in WA involving members of the CaLD community, which represented 37% of all drowning deaths.
Limited water safety awareness combined with alarmingly low participation levels in swimming and water safety programs are contributing factors in this over-representation of CaLD community members in the Western Australian Drowning Report.
Royal Life Saving Society WA notes that swimming and water safety education is overlooked by new migrants due to barriers such as cost and availability.
Royal Life Saving Society WA is effectively addressing these barriers to participation so that swimming, lifesaving and community education programs are appropriate and accessible to all Australians.
Article courtesy of Australasian Leisure Management
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