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“I love swimming and secondly I love getting involved with people – meeting new people
every day and helping people and telling people about safety (at) the beach.” Karim: “You
get to see the beach. Look at people and have a talk. You know it would be great to save
someone’s life one day. You just want to feel that feeling you know what I mean?”
“Australia is a multicultural country and a lot of people come from different cultures
and different countries. A lot of people are not aware about the risk on the beach. I educate
them – I feel very good. I enjoy it a lot.”
“The great Australian pastime is to spend a lot of time down at the beach in the water.
By having guys such as Vishal and Joseph come down and be involved they are really ambassadors
for their communities in terms of learning the skills that they need to not get in trouble
themselves and to get others out of trouble.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to bridge that cultural void - that cultural divide. It’s important
for the Lebanese to get involved with the community and work in tandem with the lifesavers
to help, I guess, to make it a better environment for themselves as well.”
“Lifesaving Victoria wants multicultural communities to be safer down at the beach.
It makes their life a lot better as well as people who come down and use the beach.”
“I love swimming from back in Afghanistan but I just couldn’t swim then I came to
Australia. There was this program from the Migrant Resource Centre and we came down a
done a beach program about beach safety. I saw lifeguards on the beach and I loved it
and I wanted to swim to - I loved swimming – so it’s something to get involved with
you know.”
“When I started my study at Box Hill (TAFE) I had an orientation day. At that orientation
day we had an education program that was organised by Lifesaving Victoria and after I got inspired
from Lifesaving Victoria’s presentation I decided to become a lifesaver.”
“What got me into lifeguard training? Well as I said my friends they both got into it
by finding out from Dave Holland so I said ‘I’ll give it a try’. I gave it a try
and I learnt how to do CPR, a bit of fitness started building up, more people started saying
‘Oh you do lifesaving – oh that’s good’ you know. Then I started thinking hey man
this lifesaving thing is pretty good.”
“I had a fear of water and I told them (lifesaver trainers) and they helped me a lot. They gave
me confidence.”
“Personally it’s given me opportunities like keeping me fit - that’s personally
and also it’s given me something that I can give back to my community.”
“Then it really does enrich the club. We are a community club. We are a volunteer based
club and it’s rewarding for myself and certainly all other members of the club seeing people
from different communities coming down and getting involved because really that is what
we are all about.”
“I learn English and I can meet lots of people in Australia.”
“You can branch out to other communities – constructive dialogue is important to
embrace that multicultural facet of Australian life.”
“(In the) Community that we are in everyone is isolated. Now that they realize that you
have the Arabic people mixing with the Australians, you know, they’re all mixing – they think
‘you know what maybe they do like us’ you know so they are more open about everything.
You know they feel more comfortable in front of you.”
“Before I got involved I didn’t know whether I would be welcome. It’s more like the Anglo
image that you kind of get.”
“People worry that if they are not able to swim they would not be able to be a lifesaver
or if they are they won’t be any good at it. People also worry about getting involved
if they have any language barriers or if they are scared of the water. (These) can all be
barriers to getting involved.”
“Back home in Afghanistan a lot of stuff that people used to do were mostly (done by)
men you know not females. But down here the great thing is that everyone is mixed you
know.”
“I think the biggest challenge is purely priorities. Coming down to the beach and water
safety education wasn’t a great priority in their countries of origin and when you
come to a new place, in this case its Melbourne, finding a job, learning the language, just
coming to terms with your new environment they all take a greater priority.”
“They helped me with cost. One thing that was very important is that I’m not very
good at English but they speak very very slowly and I can understand very well.”
“One of strategies is to run activities onsite at the beach so that community members
can get an idea of what a club is, what volunteers are and what we do down here at clubs. Minty
was an example of that. He came along to one of our beach days. On the other side of things
you’ve got Joseph and Vishal were, if we can’t get communities down at the beach,
we’ll go to the communities and we’ll run education programs.”
“In terms of the training, overcoming things like language barriers by referring to more
diagrams or more practical explanations. Instead of just talking about the dangers at the beach
actually going out and showing and looking at the dangers at the beach. In terms of swimming
and water skills starting at a bit of a more basic level and then trying to progress up
from there. Working with them a bit more and giving a little bit more individual help to
help get them up to that level which they are all certainly very capable of achieving.”
“Do your research. Speak to the people who you are getting involved. Find out what their
fears and reservations may be before starting so that you can put them at ease a bit and
if need be adapt some of your practices to be able to suit them.”
“Create awareness and show them that lifesaving is not just for one part of people, it’s
for all people to learn and to show them how easy it is to get involved and what they have
to do. It’s not really that hard to get involved in becoming a lifesaver.”
“There are a lot of different communities out there and it’s probably a case of knowing
which (groups) represent those communities and talk to them and explain to them what
the benefits are of such a program.”
“If you want me to do something make me feel wanted. Introduce me to everyone. If
the coach wants to come and speak make sure he speaks to the parents, make eye contact,
this and that. Make your son or whoever wants to be in that field, you know, just make them
feel wanted. If you get that you know everyone wants to feel wanted. I mean no one is going
to say no to someone who is making them feel special.”
“Surf lifesaving Australia has offered me that opportunity to volunteer to be part of
something bigger. Level after level it’s like whatever you are ready for surf lifesaving
has an option for you available.”
“I think our main point was to create awareness. Not just the Lebanese community but the Middle
Eastern community in Melbourne. Really us being here at the moment it’s to give that
chance to these people and show exactly that there is a chance out there for these teenagers
that are coming up.”
“At school I tell people about the beach safety; my neighbours I tell them about beach
safety; my family I tell them about beach safety, everyone (I tell them) – they’re
interested.”
“All the signs are that we are gaining very very good traction and the guys that you’ve
seen today are going to be the sort of role models that are going to encourage other people
to do the same thing.”
“For us to do this I feel like I’m helping my own culture out by saying ‘look I’m
from the same side as you, my background is exact same as yours and look what I’m doing.
I feel wanted’. I want to help other people not just myself and my own kind of background.
I want to help everyone around me. If they get that then I feel like I’ve just made
a point here – I’m helping them out and if that happens I’ve done my job.”