Multicultural community leaders pleading for urgent action to prevent more foreigners drowning in SA waters

Multicultural community leaders are pleading for urgent action to prevent more foreigners drowning in South Australian waters.

• Tributes: Nischal just ‘wanted to make his family proud’

Multicultural community leaders are pleading for urgent action to prevent more foreigners drowning in South Australian waters.

They want greater investment in swimming lessons, improved education and increased awareness about water safety for new arrivals.

The call comes as the parents of a disabled boy being looked after by latest drowning victim Nischal Ghimire led tributes to the “humble” carer.

The body of Mr Ghimire, 22, was found by water operations police floating near West Beach boat ramp just after 7.30pm on Friday.

Mr Ghimire is at least the ninth overseas-born person to have drowned in SA waters since Anzac Day, 2014.

Nischal Ghimire, 22, drowned at Glenelg on December 27, 2018

Elias Nimbona, 15, drowned at Glenelg on December 18, 2017

Nitisha Negi, 15, drowned at Glenelg on December 10, 2017.

Nasir Ali Anwari, 18, drowned at Petrel Cove on December 24, 2015.

His death has prompted calls for urgent action to stop what the state’s Multicultural Communities Council has described as “preventable tragedies”.

The council’s chief executive Helena Kyriazopoulos told the Sunday Mail governments could no longer afford to ignore the issue of drownings involving new arrivals, tourists and international students.

Frank Ndikuriyo and Thierry Niyomwungere, both 11, drowned near the Glenelg breakwater on January 1, 2016

“It will cost some money but this pales into insignificance when you compare it to having to contact a mother or father overseas to tell them their son or daughter has died,” Mrs Kyriazopoulos said. She said the need to better educate and raise awareness about water safety to newcomers had been a constant topic over the past few years at SA Water safety committee meetings.

Alpesh Patel, 25, drowned off Semaphore on March 26, 2016

Rajeepan Nakuleswaran, 21, drowned in the River Murray near Renmark on October 6, 2015

Kamran Gujari, 19, drowned at Petrel Cove on April 25, 2014

“Each year, the same issue is raised, each year more lives are lost … and the great tragedy is these deaths are preventable — not one life should be lost,” Mrs Kyriazopoulos said.

“For most people who grow up in Australia, being around water and swimming lessons are a part of life from a young age but this isn’t the case for many who move here.

“Some haven’t even seen water before — they don’t know about the risks of rip currents or rocks underneath the water.”

Mrs Kyriazopoulos said education and affordable swimming lessons were vital.

“It is about working with the leaders of various ethnic communities who are so well-connected with their own communities to raise awareness about water safety,” she said. “These leaders need to be supported to get the message out and can’t be left to work in isolation. And, importantly, it’s not something we do once in the lead-up to summer and then forget about. It’s something we have to repeat every year; it needs to be a continual thing.”

Mrs Kyriazopoulos acknowledged work was being done in some sectors to offer swimming lessons but this needed to be expanded to tourists and visiting students. This latest death is so, so tragic … with greater support from the community and government, we can stop this heartache from happening to another family.”

Honorary Consul of Nepal for South Australia, Dipak Dhamala. Picture: Supplied

SA Honorary Consul for Nepal Dipak Dhamala called for awareness programs highlighting water dangers. “In that area, everyone who has drowned (recently) was a foreigner,’’ Mr Dhamala said.

“So foreigners need to know about swimming in Australia. I think we need some sort of help from government or some organisations.”

Mr Dhamala said he was certain police, surf lifesaving and other emergency services would support more prevention and education to save on the enormous expense of search and rescue operations.

“If we run some kind of awareness programs and maybe free swimming lessons for overseas students, it will cost less than running (search and rescue) operations,’’ he said. Mr Dhamala said few people who emigrated from countries without access to beaches or rivers knew how to swim and many were unfamiliar with the concepts of currents, rips and tides.

“In Nepal, a lot of people don’t know how to swim because it is a landlocked country,” he said. “We have very limited swimming pools and we don’t have the sea.”

Non Resident Nepali Association president Ashok KC called on the State Government to fund more water safety education programs.

“This is a safety issue and there needs to be better education and information sessions for people coming here about the dangers of water, tides, and the best places to swim,” Mr KC said.

The Victorian Government on Saturday announced it would expand an online safety message campaign, using geolocation-based technology, to target those deemed a higher risk of drowning. SA Recreational Minister Corey Wingard said the Government would continue working with multicultural communities to ensure people remained safe.

LESSON FROM A SWIMMING LEGEND

By Rebecca Baker

AUSTRALIAN swim coaching legend Laurie Lawrence says better water safety education is the only way to prevent the spate of drowning deaths of overseas-born swimmers.

“These drownings aren’t going to stop without education,” he said.

“Many of our newest arrivals to Australia know no better and simply don’t comprehend the dangers … many come from landlocked countries and some have never been in water past their ankles.

Former Olympic swimming coach Laurie Lawrence

“The need for education is huge,” he said.

Lawrence, a veteran of eight Olympic Games and mentor to a string of champions, has for the past 18 years been focused on reducing the drowning deaths of children aged five and under.

In 2000, Lawrence created the Kids Alive water safety program, helping to reduce the number of drownings of preschoolers across the country from 63 in the launch year, to 18 in 2018.

He says the program’s success is due in part to how it is targeted, with all new parents given water safety resources as part of “new mum bounty bags” provided at hospitals and by obstetricians and doctors.

“This year, we’ve had zero deaths of preschoolers in Tasmania and the Northern Territory — our aim is to achieve zero deaths in kids under five nationally and if we can do it, we’ll be the first country in the world to do it,” he said.

The former schoolteacher says that as well as targeting new migrants, more local champions are needed to promote water safety within their own ethnic communities, such as Adelaide’s first African-born lifesaver, Matthew Chimu.