November 22, 2022
Skipped swimming lessons costly
Swimsafer Week ambassador Rob Hewitt wants the government to step up with the money so every child in Aotearoa learns how to swim.
The former navy diver, who survived for 75 hours in the sea after being swept out while diving off the Kapiti coast in 2006, says 90 New Zealanders who drowned last year, the highest total since 2011.
Of those, 42 were Maori men.
He says swimming lessons aren’t cheap – and it’s not something that can be funded at scale by givealittle pages.
“The times we live in, milk has gone up, food has gone up, commodities have gone up, everything has gone up, and the swimming lessons are down in the pecking order. So now we’ve got to look at how can we as a country, how can we as a government, how can we as a community and as Māori support our whānau in getting these swimming lessons and what does that look like,” Mr Hewitt says.
It’s not just learning to swim in the pool but being confident in the open water where a lot of Māori will be working.