The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has launched its second Swimming Survival Centre (SSC) in Tombo Village near Port St Johns.
This comes after the NSRI launched its first SSC in Cape Town 10 months ago.
The centre is built in a 12m shipping container, which features a six-metre-long swimming pool, office space for the instructor and a change room for the students.
In addition to some of the safety features, the pool is one metre deep, allowing small children to stand in it.
Being based in a shipping container means that the pool can be completely locked up when not in use, to ensure there is no danger of anyone entering the pool while instructors are not on duty.
NSRI drowning prevention manager, Andrew Ingram, says the newly launched SCC is located at Noah Christian Academy, an independent school in Tombo village.
The school was identified by NSRI national water safety team leader, who works in the area.
“The swimming centre is incredibly advanced, with built-in cameras inside that are monitored by the NSRI’s emergency operations centre. It has numerous monitoring devices to check the water temperature, air temperature, humidity, and water quality,” Ingram states.
“This project has continued to receive incredible support from Fluidra and the swimming pool industry in general. This is our first Survival Swimming Centre that has a title sponsor – Thank you to Speedo South Africa and their Swim United initiative for doing this for the children of Tombo,” Ingram said.
“We hope to create a swimming culture among the children and teachers whom we have taught how to swim. The skills the teachers will gain will allow them to teach upcoming students how to survive in water,” he added.
The roll-out of the free swimming lessons got underway on September 1, with teaching the Grade 7s who will be able to take their swimming skills with them to high school. This will be followed by interested teachers at the school and they will be led by the school principal.
“Considering that swimming lessons are only afforded by wealthy families, having this centre will be so special for our kids and the community at large. We stay in a village that is close to the Umzimvubu River and the coast, where young and old people drown, so equipping our learners with swimming lessons will be a huge advantage” said Noah Christian Academy principal, Nwabisa Vera-Nkata.
Ingram added that the Port St Johns Local Municipality had high statistics of drowning, which swayed them in their decision to bring the SSC to an area under the local municipality.
He further confirmed that they were planning to roll-out more of these Swimming Survival Centres to other areas nationally.
