Warmun youth learn vital Bronze skills

A group of young people in Warmun now have vital water safety and rescue skills, after completing a Bronze Medallion program at our Remote Aboriginal Swimming Pool in their town. Pool Manager Aaron Jacobs ran the training session last week, with nine young people attending from the Gija Youth Program.

The participants are employed as youth workers with Gija and regularly host trips to local water holes, rivers and creeks. The skills they’ve learnt within the Bronze Medallion program, including aquatic awareness, rescue, recovery and survival skills, will be vital in keeping the children they are working with safe. The program was co-designed to be culturally appropriate through support from Lotterywest. 

Aaron Jacobs says the course went extremely well. “Everyone enjoyed the day and it was great to present the course to these guys and be amongst their banter. As trips to many of the eastern Kimberley's water holes and water courses are an everyday part of the Gija people's daily life, its fantastic to know that the skillset and knowledge acquired by the Gija Youth Program employees through Bronze Medallion training will be passed to family members throughout the community so they can remain safe when in these aquatic environments.”

Aaron also taught a Bronze Medallion course for local Warmun teachers recently and is looking forward to teaching these skills to more community members in the coming weeks.

The Remote Aboriginal Swimming Pool project is supported by the Department of communities and BHP, and you can read more about the fantastic work being done by these pools across regional WA at the link below.