A Maitland man is determined to get kids off the streets by teaching them how to swim.
Keith Abrahams says after watching many disadvantaged children drown, he has decided to give them free swimming lessons.
The founder of the Warobile Lifesaving Aquatics Academy says he hopes to take this initiative to the rest of the country.
“I am a former law enforcement officer and we have been saving lives since 1993. People were drowning like flies and we stopped that. I did the training and I am very good at what I do,” he says.
Keith says he opened his academy in 2013, after two boys from the Northern Cape drowned.
“The project was inspired by the deaths of two teenagers at Camps Bay Beach in 2013. Both 16, the two were on a school trip to Cape Town.
“It’s named Warobile, after the two drowned pupils, which combines the first names of Waroona Senosi and Qarabile Motswari.
“I honoured them by opening the academy, I brought my wife on board and I have another guy who is part of the team.”
Abrahams says he grabbed the chance by cleaning up a dirty pool at Holy Cross High School.
“This is now filled by many people of all ages, from 3 to 80 years old.
“I decided to turn this into a programme where I can get the disadvantaged kids, I teach them for free. However, if you are working, you have to pay a fee of R250 as a member of the club and R100 per lesson.
“I noticed that there are a lot of children who aren’t in school or in gangster areas, so I picked them up and took them to the pool. There have been over 200 kids in the programme.
“I would rather teach them the skill of swimming than see them drown in drugs and gangs. After the lessons the children are served with a hot meal and then they are dropped off at home. This is what I would like for the children of places like Bonteheuwel and Khayelitsha.”
Former student Casey Muller says she went to learn advanced swimming at the academy.
“I started there about three years ago. I absolutely love his initiative to help the disadvantaged children to learn how to swim, because it is one of the skills that is important to have especially with the amount of drownings that have happened.”