As the ‘23/’24 Survival Swimming season draws to a close, we take a look at the very first volunteer Survival Swimming venue, the Sea Point Pavilion in Cape Town, which is still going strong.
It’s the close of another successful season of Survival Swimming (SS) at the Sea Point Pavilion pool complex in Cape Town, the venue where the first seed was planted for a programme that, today, is a nationwide movement that teaches thousands of children to swim each year.
“Every season is a successful season!” says Nazreen Adams, the NSRI’s Drowning Prevention National Project Coordinator. “Sea Point generally gets a lot of traffic in summer. Apart from the numbers – we taught 991 Survival Swimming lessons this past season – we also get great feedback from the public.”
The SS team at the Pavilion recently said goodbye to a valued team member, Daniella Letizia, who received a Director’s Letter of Thanks from the NSRI. “Daniella was the station manager for two years but is looking to further her studies overseas,” says Nazreen. “We wish her well and success in all her future endeavours.”
Thankfully, the Pavilion team still have the indefatigable Alison Cope* on deck, one of the founding brains behind the Survival Swimming programme (along with Communications Manager Andrew Ingram and former NSRI CEO Ian Weinberg). From a small first batch of lessons in 2019 at the Pavilion, the SS programme has reached 31 000 learners all over the country despite challenges such as the closing of municipal pools due to poor maintenance, poor learner access to pools, and loadshedding – making it a contender for one of the largest accidental death prevention initiatives in the country.
“When we started, we certainly hoped it would grow to the size it has and beyond,” says Alison. “We actually modelled it on the NSRI’s existing sea rescue structure, where each SS station would have a commander, and so on.”
SS instructor Ally Waits has also been crucial to the success of the SS programme at the pavilion.
“Ally has really been instrumental in moving things along from an admin perspective,” says Alison. “My forté is training the volunteers and teachers.”
Alison has been teaching swimming since she was 15, and at 75, she shows no sign of slowing down. “I am more passionate about it now than ever,” she says. “When a person learns to swim, their entire body language changes. The confidence and self-respect it gives a person when they conquer this aquatic environment… They look at you in total amazement. I get to see the children and adults who learn to swim walking away as a changed person. It’s a privilege to be able to witness that.”
With roughly 20 regular volunteers, the team also receives a lot of support from the Friends of Sea Point Pavilion, an NPO dedicated to keeping this aquatic treasure in good condition and to help develop swimming for people who do not have regular access to water and swimming pools. Whether it is kit for SS lessons, wetsuits for volunteer swimming instructors or transport for school students to attend lessons, the Friends step in.
Now that the season has drawn to a close, the SS team will spend the winter months analysing the past season to assess if any improvements can be made come October, when they’ll be raring to go for another season of this life-changing work.
Read more about Alison Cope’s remarkable work in the NSRI’s Survival Swimming programme in the Summer 2023 issue of Sea Rescue magazine.
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