Drive to make surf life-saving inclusive

Sea safety training, learning to swim could benefit many more

East London Surf Lifesaving wants to reach out to previously marginalised communities where swimming and life-saving as sports are still foreign.

During the festive season, drownings are a common occurrence.

Those lacking in swimming skills could suddenly find themselves drowning.

The situation could have been averted if there was someone with expertise in life-saving on hand. Life-saving as a form of a sport or profession, is something not widely known in black communities.

Now the East London club wants to change that and reach out to communities and introduce life-saving and transform their organisation.

East London Surf Lifesaving chair Dave Mandell elaborated on why the non-profit organisation wanted to strive for diversity and called on public and private sector organisations to help in reaching out to rural and township communities.

“I think it’s important East London Lifesaving has awareness on what we do for all communities,” Mandell said.

“We are not diversified enough in our members; we would like to see more diversification.

“People come on board to assist in actually teaching people how to swim. A lot of the communities have not had the opportunity to swim.

“We need other bodies to assist East London Lifesaving to diversify to a much broader community.

“We want to engage with communities so that we have diversity. A lot of white people have had the opportunity to swim, whereas black people have not.

“This is where we are lacking, we don’t have any feeder service,” Mandell said.

One way of introducing lifesaving is by presenting it as a sport to youngsters.

They pick it up as a form of fun activity and as they grow older it becomes part of them and they end up helping during festive seasons as lifeguards.

Children from the age of eight to 18 get coaching, go to competitions and have coaching courses that are internationally accredited.

This activity is something Mandell wants to introduce to disadvantaged communities.

“Life-saving was initially to stay fit and have fun; we call it serious fun where kids train and have fun.

“We are always doing beach runs, swimming out in the seas, and having races.

“They have fun but actually, they are developing their skill in terms of managing the seas.

“They think they are having fun when riding the waves but in fact, they are harnessing their skills to save someone one day.

“When they grow up they realise why they were doing it. The fun is geared towards lifesaving,” Mandell said.