BASICS: Gardmed’s Adrian Erasmus explains CPR technique using a dummy. Picture: SUE MACLENNAN
The National Sea Rescue Institute’s Survival Swimming programme has established Graeme College in Makhanda as its latest Survival Swimming site. The first training session for the school’s staff took place at the school’s newly refurbished swimming pool on Monday January 12.
The NSRI started the programme in 2020 after assessing that many drownings could have been prevented with basic water safety awareness and skills. Survival Swimming teaches children and adults the basic skills to stay afloat if they find themselves in difficulty in the water.
Monday’s session began with a lesson in basic cardiopulmonary rescuscitation by Gardmed’s Adrian Erasmus. Twelve teachers were taken through the crucial details of how to keep someone alive when their heart has stopped.
They practiced on rescuscitation dummies, with Erasmus guiding them and then NSRI Survival Swimming Regional coordinator Carol Mewse, assisted by Bev Rogers and Jean Baker then took them through the in-pool training.
Meanwhile Port Alfred Station 11 coxswain Jean-Pierre ‘JP’ du Plessis busied himself installing a Pink Rescue Buoy at the pool. The NSRI reports that ordinary people, most with no training in lifesaving, have used Pink Rescue Buoys to save around 230 lives to date.
At the pool and leading by example was principal Kevin Watson, who said, “We have spent a lot of money revamping our pool (it’s an Olympic standard pool with a separate diving pool), but we noticed that 70% of our boys aren’t safe in water.
“We see this as a necessary life skill: we want to make sure that every boy who leaves Graeme College is water safe.”
The Survival Swimming programme would be taught from Grade R through Grade 12, in addition to the school’s sport swimming programmes.
“We’ve had great support from the SGB, the teachers and the boys themselves,” Watson said.
The next step is to train boys who are competent swimmers as Survival Swimming teachers.
“Once the full programme is in place, we intend to open the programme to the broader community.”
The NSRI’s Carol Mewse and Outdoor Focus owner Carey Webster started the Sunshine Coast Survival Swimming Programme in November 2023. Together with volunteers, they have taught hundreds of children in Port Alfred, Kenton-on-Sea, and surrounding areas how to keep themselves safe and what to do in an emergency.
They have extended the programme, establishing Survival Swimming sites at Woodlands in Kenton-on-Sea, St Andrew’s College, Rhodes University and Gqeberha, with Graeme College the latest and another site in Ndlambe under discussion. Port Alfred Kid’s Beach remains a pop-up site.
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This article was first published in Talk of the Town, January 15, 2026. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays
