The Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA) has rounded off a one-week water safety training programme on waterways safety and training skills for pupils in waterways communities in the state.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, the General Manager, LASWA, Mr Oluwadamilola Emmanuel noted that 100 students from four public schools in riverine communities at the Ojo axis of Lagos were selected to participate in this year’s edition.
The schools include; Salvation Army Primary School, Ikare; Unity Grammar School, Ikare; Local Authority Primary School, Ibasa and Local Authority and Salvation Army Primary School, Ibeshe.
Emmanuel explained that the training was aimed at instilling water confidence in public school pupils by teaching them theoretical and practical knowledge on waterways safety, swimming skills, and basic survival techniques in an emergency.
“As you know, there is generally water phobia even though we are surrounded by water amongst the people of Lagos and Nigerians as a whole and of course this government is proactive and as a government we want to ensure that we are utilizing our resources which one of them is the waterways and to adequately utilize the waterway, we have to ensure that people are confident on the waterways.
Hence, one of the ways we can be confident is by learning to swim and no other way to start than with the youths within our society”, he said.
The Permanent Board Member, Lagos State Universal Basic Educational Board (LASUBEB) Mr Dayo Isreal, described the training as a phenomenal event where the young people were able to be trained and their capacity built to be able to swim and to develop water safety skills.
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According to him, pupils in public schools are more exposed to lot of opportunities such as this than than their private counterpart.
He said: “We are changing the content of schools with digitalising our classrooms but that will not be enough to improve the cognitive without also working on the affective and the psychomotor.
Therefore, this is what we are doing here today in Ibeshe to empower the young children and give them capacity to be able to become Olympic gold medalists someday.
The Founder and Lead Instructor, Dolphin Swim school and Dolphin Aquatic Center Ltd, Mrs Aderoju Ope-Ajayi lauded the Lagos state Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and LASWA for putting in place such an initiative adding that the pupils were able to grasp the concept, understand the knowledge and are now water safer.
“What I found is that, they were very eager and very excited and it’s just a typical child behavior, they were quick to learn and they were able to grasp the concept very quickly and it was just an exciting time for both of us and the facilitators.
This is something we have always been passionate about because a child learning how to be water safe means he has been told how to prevent drowning, so that means the rate of death by drowning will significantly reduce”, she added.
One of the beneficiary, a pupil from Local Authority School, Ibeshe, Ms Dorothy Davo, said she was able to learn how to dive, swim and rescue herself during flood or when their boat capsizes while going to school.
Davo on behalf of the other pupils appreciated the state government, the LASUBEB Management for the opportunity which had improved their confidence in water transportation.
The highlight of the programme was the presentation of life jackets by LASWA, to all the students.
