Westhaven, Auckland – Drowning Prevention Auckland has been successful in receiving funding for five lifejacket hubs from Maritime NZ.

Auckland is very much surrounded by water environments and a large number of Aucklanders and visitors make use of our water environments. With that; Auckland sadly has the highest number of drownings in the country as it has the highest population. We need to continue our education, collaboration and equipping Aucklander’s and visitors with the right equipment and knowledge to bring the drowning toll down.

Our lifejacket hub project supports strong organisations and clubs to make a difference in reducing drownings. Together we can make lifejackets available to the community through the hubs located around the Auckland region.

The lifejacket hubs will be located in various parts of Auckland. such as boats clubs, surf clubs and community venues where they also support the community for easy accessibility to all Aucklanders.  Through these lifejacket hubs we can get  key water safety and boating safety messages out and known to all.

This funding will setup five lifejacket hubs in the Auckland region in the following authorities: Rodney District, Waitakere, Auckland City, Franklin District and Manukau City. Each lifejacket hub will have 70 child and adult sized lifejackets available to the community. These lifejackets will equip a large number of Aucklander’s and visitors with lifejackets as needed on boats 6m and under and other water craft.

As Maritime NZ says: “Lifejackets are essential for all recreational activities on the water”. “Each year on average, 19 or 20 people die in recreational boating accidents in New Zealand. Research shows that not wearing a lifejacket is the leading risk factor”.

By having the lifejacket hubs; we want to equip people with a lifejacket when going out onto the water and we want to take the risk factor away and bring down the drowning toll.

Our main aim with this project is to educate and equip the people or groups with the right equipment and key water safety education before they head out onto the water.

For further questions, please contact: [email protected]