Water Safety New Zealand invests $2 million in drowning prevention

Water Safety New Zealand has announced the investment of more than $2 million in water safety interventions in its 2019/20 Funding Round.

With drowning the leading cause of recreational death and the third highest cause of accidental death in New Zealand, in 2018 there were 66 preventable drowning fatalities.

New Zealand’s drowning rate per 100,000 of population is twice that of Australia and four times that of the UK, and over the past 10 years the cost of drowning deaths and injuries has cost the country more than $4.5 billion

WSNZ’s annual contestable Funding Round is primarily funded by the New Zealand Lotteries Grants Board with additional funds from ACC and corporate partners The Warehouse and Protector Aluminium and trusts and foundations.

This year 96 applications were received which requested total funding of $5,219,766. This is over double the number of applications received last year when 43 applications were considered which requested total funding of $1,892,743.

Announcing the funding, WSNZ Chief Executive Jonty Mills stated “this is a reflection of what we are seeing in aquatic recreation: an increasing population, increasing participation and increasing demand for water safety education.

“While we would like to fund everything we’ve had to make some hard calls and focus on priority areas. We would like to thank everyone who applied.”

The $2,044,260 in total funding has been allocated based on these five areas of focus:

1. Drowning prevention programmes provided by national organisations which include Coastguard Boating Education, Surf Life Saving NZ, Swimming NZ and Plunket.
2. The provision of water survival competencies to children in primary schools with Water Skills for Life.
3. Māori drowning prevention.
4. Water safety in high risks areas of Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty, and
5. Other projects that address high risk groups activities and environments, including innovation and value-adding opportunities.

WSNZ’s work with Plunket will again be focused on the ‘safety message’ bathmat project which has been an effective tool in targeting under-five fatalities at bath time.

This project delivers slip preventing bathmats to parents to make bath time safer. Plunket nurses also talk to parents about the importance of constant active adult supervision of our under-fives around water at all times, and the mats themselves have the message printed on them.

Image: WSNZ's 'Swim Reaper' campaign.