Royal Life Saving WA works in conjunction with 10 swimming pools and aquatic centres, as well as various community organisations throughout the Mid West and Gascoyne regions to provide a range of programs to local communities. These include:
We are also actively raising water safety awareness, educating local communities and celebrating all that is healthy swimming activity with the below programs:
Swim for Fruit
The Go for 2 and 5 Regional and Remote Aboriginal Communities Swimming Program (or Swim for Fruit) provides support for an after school and weekend lap swimming program and the expansion of the school-based Swim and Survive programs in regional and remote communities. Children who complete a set number of laps in a session are rewarded with an afternoon tea of fresh fruit and healthy treats.
Heart Beat Club
The Heart Beat Club is a community education initiative of Royal Life Saving that is designed to provide parents, grandparents and carers of children with the skills to provide first aid and resuscitation to infants and children in and around the home, or when around water.
Approximately 55 children between the ages of 0-5 drown annually in Australia alone – that's an average of one child per week. Lives are lost in pools, fish ponds, baths, sinks and even nappy buckets. These lives could be saved utilising the skills learned in a three-hour Heart Beat Club course.
Remote Pools
The Remote Aboriginal Swimming Pools Project (RASPP) focuses on providing remote communities with recreational and educational swimming programs to encourage safe participation. Funded primarily through the Department of Communities, along with additional contributions made by BHP and the Telethon Kids Institute, the program provides a range of health, social, training and employment benefits to the local communities it runs in.
Burringurrah, located in the Upper Gascoyne about 460km east of Carnarvon, is one such community. Royal Life Saving WA manages the community swimming pool on the program's behalf, with local children and adults participating in a range of community events and activities at the pool.
Principal Community Partner - BHP
Royal Life Saving WA and our Principal Community Partner BHP have been working together since 2003 to create a healthier future for Western Australians, delivering vital programs to regional and vulnerable communities.
Our partnership focuses on key community goals such as swimming and water safety education, improving physical health and wellbeing, enhancing local livelihoods and improving social inclusion for a multicultural society.