‘One death is too many’: Life-saving society focuses on Manitoba newcomers

It’s National Drowning Prevention Week, and Manitoba’s life-saving organization says it’s focusing its public education campaign on newcomer communities.

“This year, for National Drowning Prevention Week, we’re looking at partnerships and community as our overall theme,” said Christopher Love, water smart and safety management co-ordinator with Lifesaving Society Manitoba.

“Here in Manitoba, we really dug into that and went with working with newcomers, because that is a group that we have unfortunately seen has had far too many tragedies occur.”

Love told Global Winnipeg the organization has plans for educational events in Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie and Altona this week, in partnership with local groups that provide immigrant and newcomer resources.

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That’s on top of the year-round outreach the society is already doing with newcomers to Manitoba.

“We do a lot of work with newcomers. We do water safety presentations every spring and summer, and ice safety presentations during the winter,” he said, “to help them get acclimated to Canada and hopefully bring down the level of risk when they’re exposed to all of the wonderful water throughout the province.”

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Manitoba as a whole, Love said, sees more than its share of incidents involving intoxicated people, people not wearing life-jackets, and a lack of parental supervision when young kids are near the water.

“In this province, unfortunately, we’ve seen an uptick in the number of fatalities.

“Our long-term average used to be 22 deaths per year. The latest report now has it up to 23 deaths per year. Doesn’t sound like much, but one death is one too many from our point of view.”

The society is also marking the week with a number of local landmarks lit up in blue, in an effort to get the conversation started about water safety.

“We’re just hoping to raise awareness by getting our image out there. We’re wanting to get people asking questions.

“Why is the (Esplanade Riel) bridge blue? Why is the Winnipeg sign blue? Why is that water tower in Selkirk blue? What’s that strange logo on the dome of the (Manitoba Legislature) in the evenings?”

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