Lifeguards in low-income nations are set to benefit from a donation of equipment from our social commitment fund.
Every year, an estimated 236,000 people drown, with low and middle-income nations accounting for over 90% of unintentional drowning deaths. Ruth Lee Ltd believes that every drowning is a tragedy, and its ethos as a business is to create products which enhance training and help to save more lives.
As a socially responsible company, we launched our social commitment projects in 2017 and since then, we have donated both funds and training equipment to more than 50 rescue teams in the UK and internationally.
On reflecting on projects for the year ahead, and with drowning prevention at front of their mind, we approached the International Lifesaving Federation (ILS) to discuss projects centred on this important topic. After discussing various options, we agreed to donate 20 Adult Pool Rescue Manikins to the ILS which will be passed on to trainers in low-income nations, who may not otherwise be able to afford the popular lifeguard training manikin.
International Development Manager, Sarah Hampson manages the company’s social commitment projects and said,
“Over the last 5 years we have been able to provide support to many fantastic rescue teams all around the world and this year we wanted to make sure that our focus was on projects which supported drowning prevention.
Ruth Lee Ltd has manufactured water rescue manikins for over 20 years, and in 2017 we launched our Pool Rescue manikin, which is a tool for lifeguard training, at the World Conference on Drowning Prevention in Durban. Since then, it has been used to train thousands of lifeguards all around the world including the UK, Canada, USA and Australia, who value its ability to create more realistic training scenarios.
However, we were very aware that some countries, where the need was greatest, did not have the means to purchase vital training equipment.
We are proud to work with the ILS on this project to deliver training equipment, and if even one life is saved due to improved skills and more confident lifeguards, we will feel that we have made the right decision in this donation.”