Project Life Aquatic, a 5-year special project anchored by the Malaysian-Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Kuala Lumpur (MJIIT UTM KL), was invited by Selamat Pagi Malaysia, TV1, on the 21st February 2022 to share further insights about water safety, swimming and life-saving education in Malaysia.
On air were the Dean of MJIIT, Prof. Ts. Dr. Ali bin Selamat along with the founder and director of Project Life Aquatic and also an academician at MJIIT UTM KL, Dr. Rahayu binti Tasnim.
Project Life Aquatic aims to uplift Malaysia’s water safety, swimming and life saving education to world-class standards, benchmarking other countries which are successful in their water safety, swimming and life saving efforts, namely Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States of America.
The show centered around discussions on the ‘silent killer’, which is drowning, and how drowning is possible in a mere 3 centimeter of water.
The aim of Project Life Aquatic is to educate the communities which are not privileged to learn swimming, especially the disabled and the poor (B40), to be exposed to water safety, swimming and life saving education.
With the tagline of ‘A Lifesaver in Each Home’, Project Life Aquatic focuses on instilling not only water safety, swimming and lifesaving education to the underprivileged communities, but also basic scuba and freediving skills.
Project Life Aquatic allows participants to learn these skills in both the open water (lakes, seas, rivers) and confined water (pools) environments.
MJIIT UTM KL with strong support from its Japanese counterparts, including the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and 30 other Japanese universities (under the Japanese University Consortium), sets the platform for Project Life Aquatic to collaborate with not only local parties, but interested parties from Japan and all around the world, to contribute to the aims of this 5-year project.
The Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Centre (DPPC), a unique centre born under the Japanese-Malaysia relationship of MJIIT, is also seen as a platform for building public awareness on the importance of water safety, swimming and life saving skills.
It is important especially for survival during natural disasters such as floods, tsunami and other water based emergencies.
MJIIT is working on ways to influence society positively over the long run through Project Life Aquatic’s efforts.
One of its signature programmes is ‘Swim & Sponsor‘.
The ‘Swim & Sponsor’ programme focuses on educating parents with disabled children on the needed water survival, swimming and life saving skills.
Since only the parents of disabled children truly understand their child, the programme teaches them, and along with their disabled child (in the swimming pool, lake or sea), as one family unit.
Poor families with disabled children will be sponsored by generous Malaysians in this unique programme.
‘Swim & Save’, and ‘Surf & Save’ will be included in the upcoming community programmes.
–https://youtu.be/k3JSnMgu8hY
Prepared by:
Syazana Huda
Public Relations Intern
Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT)
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia