The initiative came about after several stories emerged involving children drowning a metre or two from safety. They would not have needed to swim 50 metres to survive; they would only have needed to know how to move as little as five metres through the water to get to safety.
Our squads, made up of full time professional instructors and volunteers who want to share their joy of swimming with children, visit public swimming pools to teach the basics of survival swimming:
During one of our pilot programme sessions, it took just one two-hour lesson, for four instructors to assess and upskill 55 children.
These lessons are offered free of charge and are organised with the kind permission of facilities’ officers and by appointment.
If you are a strong swimmer, you can become a Survival Swimming instructor and teach life-saving skills.
The NSRI has three core Drowning Prevention programmes – Water Safety Education, Pink Rescue Buoys and Survival Swimming – and offers a range of free resources and educational materials.
“What drives me is knowing the Survival Swimming skills we teach, not only can save a life one day but will also change the lives of generations to come.’’
The NSRI’s AQUA Survival Swimming Programme in Wellington is transforming a community’s relationship with water by training municipal lifeguards as survival swimming instructors and equipping local children with the skills to save themselves.
Inside the gates of Steilhoogte Primary School, children laugh and play in safety. But just beyond those gates lies a different world, one where canals, dams and rivers cut through the farmland of Vredendal and Klawer, and where the simple act of cooling off on a hot day can turn deadly.
The NSRI extends its heartfelt thanks to Fundació Fluidra and Fluidra South Africa for their generous donation of R165,000 towards the maintenance of our Survival Swimming Centres.
When 18-year-old Zinitha Manavele first arrived at the Long Street swimming pool in October 2024, she could barely swim and was scared of water. Less than six months later, she’s a certified volunteer survival swimming instructor inspiring young learners – and the entire NSRI team.
In a classroom in Ceres, a penguin and a tortoise are helping teach some of the town’s youngest children how to stay safe around water. These soft toys are part of the NSRI’s water safety lessons for children in creches. But thanks to the initiative of Drowning Prevention Instructor Eoudia Erasmus, the programme has taken a bold next step: bringing 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds into the pool to learn survival swimming.
As the summer season draws to a close, so too does another successful chapter of the NSRI’s Survival Swimming programme in Ceres. While hundreds of children benefited from weekly lessons in the municipal pools, one school, N’duli Primary, unfortunately, could not participate this season as the programme was already at full capacity.
