The summer brings with it scorching sun and loads of water fun but it also brings with it and an increase in drowning. Recognising this, Sun City’s Life Saving Club (LSC) recently embarked on a sustained campaign to bring essential water safety awareness to children in surrounding communities.
Using new teaching aids and posters supplied by Lifesaving South Africa, the national authority on lifesaving standards and certification in the country, Sun City’s Life Saving Club has been able to get the club’s message of water safety to hundreds of learners in and around Sun City.
This project, to enhance water safety education, is an extension to Sun City’s ongoing corporate social investment programme which aims to improve the quality of life for people in nearby communities through knowledge share and skills development.
Sun City’s Life Saving Club Development and Education Facilitator, the enthusiastic and passionate Sifiso Simamane, is a professional lifeguard with SA Lifeguard Corporation (SALCO), who still finds time to focus on community projects.
Working closely with another qualified lifeguard and paramedic based at Sun City’s Valley of Waves clinic, Lerato Mokoka, Simamane has seen to it that 243 learners at five schools around the area have completed their awareness courses and can now visit pools and dams safely. 55 Learners of Cornerstone Academy at Sun City’s Sun Village, 96 learners of Bonwakgogo Primary School in Phokeng and 92 learners of Mafenya Primary School in Chaneng, are better off and more equipped to be in and around water than they were before, thanks to this project.
Simamane and Mokoka also engage in their most dynamic project at Holy Family Combined School in Mogwase, teaching a whopping 500 school pupils how to swim as part of the school’s curriculum every day.
The Sun City Life Saving Club has now been acknowledged for their work at the Lifesaving South Africa Annual Awards evening on 28 July 2018. The club won the Bavo Verheyden Trophy for the Best Drowning Prevention Initiative for the 2017/2018 season. In addition to this, the Stillwater Patroller of the Year Award was awarded to Kyle Carbonell, who is one of Sun City’s seasonal workers over the summer holidays.
“We are very proud of the dedicated work of Sun City’s Life Saving Club. They have made a tremendous effort to increase the level of water safety awareness amongst the youth in our communities.
“All of these learners are issued with booklets and have to write a test on what they have learned during the presentation and teachings to ensure that careful attention is paid to what they are being taught over and above all else, that more children are capable of keeping themselves safe in water, with less risk of drowning.
“It is reassuring to know that the learners are correctly briefed on visiting swimming pools and water parks and are educated on water safety and lifesaving concepts by these two dynamic people who represent our CSI strategy and vision so well,” says Thapelo Modise, Marketing Manager of Sun City.
Modise concludes, saying that Sun City’s Life Saving Club, supported by SA Lifeguard Corporation, will continue to make inroads into the community in an attempt to educate all schools in the greater North West region in and around Sun City.
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