SplashSave founder Phil Waggott at Wai Splash with his manual, which guides parents in teaching their children water safety.
SplashSave founder Phil Waggott at Wai Splash with his manual, which guides parents in teaching their children water safety.
Upset with the terrible death toll from drownings and having been a competitive swimmer himself, Phil Waggott decided he needed to do something.
Forty-eight per cent of New Zealanders are not engaged in aquatic education – learning about keeping safe in the water.
Phil decided to concentrate on mostly pre-school children and designed the SplashSave programme to prevent them from drowning by running sessions at Dannevirke’s Wai Splash pool.
Tutor Vinny Rongo teaches Asha, Jaycee and Jahmia Harrison to float on their backs.
His emphasis is on parental involvement because, he argues, they are the ones who teach their children how to cross a road safely, and there is equal danger in the water.
He designs each session specifically to meet the needs of his particular group, with certain basic principles in play leading to them gaining confidence in the water.
These include using floatation devices like noodles or flutter boards or anything else that floats, staying together with adults and safe behaviour.
He says the key ingredient is time in the water with adults.
Michael Phillips with his two daughters Eloise, four, and Brook, three, learning about safety in the water using a flutter board at Wai Splash.
He trialled his programme with Water Safety New Zealand in 2017 and got the thumbs up, and gained support from the NZ Swim Teacher’s Association, Recreation Aotearoa, ACC and regional sports groups like Sport Manawatū, which sponsored the training session at Wai Splash and spread throughout New Zealand.
Phil’s programme has a cost for participants who can afford to pay, and all the payments go to subsidise those who cannot. He favours businesses sponsoring groups like preschools as a way of preventing drownings.
Rotary International dived in with support for SplashSave. The organisation had previously focused on the eradication of polio as its global campaign, but with the disease in sharp decline, it has shifted focus to drowning as the largest preventable killer globally (a death in the world by drowning every 2.5 minutes), combating it with its new Rotary Global Water Safety and Drowning Prevention programme.
Phil says nearly all people love being in water but less than half of them have prepared to survive in it. He says that is why his kind of programme is essential, and knowing it is saving lives helps him sleep better at night.
