Aotea Sea Scouts - Grant for Life Jackets

Stephen and Deearna from Onehunga

Aotea Sea Scouts operates from Onehunga. We are a community focused charitable group and part of Scouting New Zealand.

Last year our life jackets were reviewed by the Auckland Coastguard who instructed us to throw away 28 life jackets that had reached end of life, being made from Kapok and no longer considered safe to wear. We have also been instructed by Scouting New Zealand to add crotch straps to child life jackets to meet new rules being introduced by Scouting New Zealand. This is to ensure the safety of children wearing the life jackets, which we totally support, but need assistance to achieve.

Each year Aotea Sea Scouts provides free kayaking for those attending the Onehunga Festival. It is vital we have adequate life jackets to support this event. This means we also need life jackets for larger folk, so that they can enjoy having a go, along with a few small life jackets for those wishing to take a wee one out on the water with them. This event is in addition to our regular program which sees youth from Onehunga and surrounding suburbs learning about boats, water safety and having fun on and around water. We also run an annual canoe carnival on Onehunga Lagoon which sees us requiring a larger than usual number of life jackets to enable scouts from across the Auckland region to participate.

We are looking to obtain 40 new life jackets in various sizes along with crotch straps to add to existing life jackets. We also need to purchase a new outboard motor for our safety boat. The prize money will be invaluable to help us meet our goals, enabling us to continue to offer our program, which not only gives our youth confidence around water, it imparts skills for life and helps save lives.

We hope that the public vote, and the AMI community grants program will see this as a highly valued cause and select our organisation to receive this grant.