In a bid to minimise drowning incidents and upskill residents, Nelson Mandela Bay will provide swimming lessons to children and adults in communities across the city through its Learn to Swim programme this festive season.
The programme, which will be implemented through schools, will run in eight of the city’s swimming pools including Zwide, New Brighton, Rosedale, Gelvandale, Westering, Newton Parkand Malabar.
The first category of the lessons will be for children from ages five to 16, which will focus on beginners and run from December 1-15.
The second category will focus on those aged 16 to 35, which will be more advanced swimming lessons and run from January to March.
Adults who excel will be upgraded to formal life-saving training.
Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya said the programme was established more than five years ago and had produced several graduates who were now permanently employed as lifeguards in the city.
He said the programme was initiated to beef up water safety and transfer skills.
“The reintroduction of this programme will not only improve safety and save thousands of children from possible drowning, but will impart critical life skills to children, more especially from the previously disadvantaged communities,” Soyaya said.
“The programme will initially run from December 1-15, allowing space for the official operation of the swimming pools between December 16 2024 and January 15 2025.
“The safety of bathers and the provision of qualified lifeguards at our swimming pools will be the priority.”
The programme will be launched at the end of November.
In November 2023, because of vandalism, some of the metro’s swimming pools were not in a good state and could not be opened due to a lack of maintenance and adequate security provision by the metro.
In Humewood, the Kings Beach pool and Toddlers Beach pool guardhouses remain bricked up.
Three years after the Covid-19 lockdown, when public facilities were closed, many of the pools have gone to rack and ruin, with the municipality having to spend millions to get them usable again.
The sport, recreation, arts and culture committee in 2022 proposed that R4.5m be set aside to fix six pools as part of a rehabilitation strategy.
But vandalism remained a challenge, with facilities such as the Motherwell pool at the Raymond Mhlaba Sports Centre requiring huge reinvestment to meet the required standards.
This year, Soyaya confirmed that the eight swimming pools earmarked to host the training would be ready for public use by the time the programme was launched.
Due to a lack of resources, Soyaya said the first category of the programme would be implemented only at five swimming pools. The selected pools are Zwide, New Brighton, Rosedale, Gelvandale and Westering.
The second category will be implemented at all the swimming pools that will be open during the 2024/2025 season.
“The other metro swimming pools are not in a condition fit for operation due to vandalism and refurbishments currently under way across the metro,” Soyaya said.
HeraldLIVE
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