2019 Access and Equity Multicultural Steering Committee Meeting
Royal Life Saving WA’s Access and Equity Multicultural Steering Committee held its first meeting of 2019 earlier this week. The Committee involves key stakeholders who partner with the Society to deliver Swimming and Water Safety Education Programs, Cultural Awareness Training and feedback on how to create more opportunities for CaLD and Aboriginal communities to safely take part in aquatic activities.
The Committee is leading the way nationally in this space, through strong collaboration and consultation on program initiatives to reduce drowning and increase swimming and water safety awareness amongst Multicultural and Indigenous communities.
The latest meeting saw representatives attend from local government organisations including the City of Canning and City of Kwinana, Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, Royal Life Saving Society Australia, Edmund Rice Centre, WA Multicultural Association, Chung Wah Association and the Kenya Association of WA. The group reflected on key achievements and highlights from Access and Equity programming during 2018/19, and also discussed action items to improve programs planning for 2019/20.
It was great to also have guest speaker Stacey Pidgeon from Royal Life Saving Australia attend the latest meeting, to present data from the recently published “10 Year National Study of Overseas Born Drowning Deaths” and discuss key action items that resulted from a National Symposium held in Sydney last December. Members of the Committee were able to contribute ideas and insights for improvements and better strategies to engage with Multicultural and Indigenous communities to increase swimming and water safety education amongst these groups.
The Swim and Survive Access and Equity program is proudly supported by BHP, Lotterywest and the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. If you would like more information on our Access and Equity program or would like to be involved in the Multicultural Steering Committee you can find out more at the link below.
For a copy of the National Overseas Drowning Report, please click here:
