Abstract:
Globally, the Asia-Pacific region has been one of the more dynamic regions for people movement in recent years and evidence of this in contemporary New Zealand society abounds. This paper focuses on community education programmes that prevent the incidence of drowning among new settlers in an aquatically oriented island nation through water safety education. National and regional policy documents that set the framework for targeted community water safety education are discussed in relation to interventions put in place in the culturally and linguistically metropolitan region of greater Auckland. Three case studies of new settler water safety initiatives and evaluations of their impact are presented. They include: the West Coast Rock Fishing Safety Project, the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) Refugee Youth Water Safety Programme, and the Auckland Muslim Women’s Swimming Project. Gaps in the current provision of community education water safety programmes are identified and ways to address shortcoming are recommended.
