SLSGB’s Director of National Operations & Safety, Adrian Mayhew presented at the World Conference Drowning Prevention in Perth, Australia in early December.
Adrian tells us, “The WCDP is organised by the International Life Saving Federation, hosted jointly by SLSA and RLSS Aus and supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO).”
“A nearly weeklong conference with ILS meetings and workshops along with presentations by world experts on drowning prevention covering medical, education, safety initiatives and research.”
“We went out to represent SLSGB and my ILS role at Chair of the Rescue Operations committee to review new policy statements that will be put on the ILS website in 2024. Other areas were to deliver the disaster flood workshop. Here, the team from ILS and I delivered a 1-day workshop on research findings that SLSGB has been involved in, and to showcase why lifesavers are good in the flood rescue arena and how lessons learned by SLSGB can help other countries move their program forward. This work was based on the United Nations Sendia Framework to effectively prepare, rescue and recover from such disasters. The WHO reported that over 236,000 people drown each year, but this does not consider flood disaster, which the WHO estimate over 700 million people in the last 10 years have lost their lives. SLSGB has been seen as a world lead on this subject and it was an honour to help.”
“Post conference we met members of Surf Life Saving Tasmania, as they will be training flood rescue to its members. Since 2015, SLST and SLSGB have worked together in helping set them up as flood rescue responders.”
“Photo below, a panel of experts and I were asked to be on stage in front of the delegates of the conference in a plenary discussion on migration, disaster, and climate change. This was a real honour and experience to listen and be a part of some major global policy makers in an area that is a most complex.”
