The Māori Water Safety Campaign

WSNZ Māori Water Safety Campaign is about reducing the number of Māori deaths through drowning. The strategy recognises that WSNZ must adopt tikanga Māori if we are going to be effective in preventing drowning deaths.

The campaign commenced in June 2003 and will be reviewed in June 2006. It is intended that on a positive outcome of the review that the campaign will become a regular part of WSNZ’s ongoing commitment to water safety in New Zealand.

It was clear from the outset of the campaign that no one had brought the severity of the problem to Māori communities, nor was much attention paid to delivering water safety messages in a way that would be embraced by Māori.  In order to address the problem, a short-term strategy (looking at how we disseminate information and build awareness) and a long term strategy (how we can work with Maori to effect behaviour change) needed to be developed.

The activities developed for the campaign are designed to address both the short and long term strategic issues.

New initiatives linked with the campaign include:

• the development of a Māori Water Safety teachers Education Kit that will be sent to every Kohanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa Māori and mainstream schools with an affiliated Māori unit throughout New Zealand
• the development and promotion of a designated Māori Water Safety website
• the development of a series of rolling radio advertisements containing key water safety messages, promoted by Māori role models on iwi radio stations over the summer months
• the development of new printed material for distribution, targeting specific groups within the Māori communities
• the development of regional water safety programmes throughout New Zealand in association with iwi, local government agencies, community groups and other national and local water related associations.