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Heroes of the Sea
The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) is a non-profit organisation that saves lives on South African waters. Sea Rescue is run by 880 highly skilled volunteers who are on standby day and night throughout the year, often putting to sea in the very worst conditions.
Donations and sponsorships cover the annual running cost of R17m. The volunteers save South African citizens a salary bill in excess of R185m per annum.
Saving Lives
The NSRI has 29 coastal and three inland stations. It has a fleet of 72 rescue craft, 21 vehicles and access to a range of helicopters. NSRI enjoys a good working relationship with other emergency services and believes that it is through team effort that lives are saved.
The NSRI has initiated an education arm called WaterWise, which teaches children what to do in an emergency and gives them the confidence to "breathe for their buddy" while they wait for the ambulance to arrive. WaterWise targets the disadvantaged youth between the ages of nine and 14, because statistically they are the most at risk (South African Medical Research Council, 2006).
As of the time of the article the NSRI have had 13995 operations, saved 2192 lives, assisted 23011 people, towed 4463 boats and assisted 2490 boats.
Doing our part
A year ago Shapeshift was contacted by the NSRI to become one of their monthly sponsors. Believing in their honourable cause, and in the absolute necessity for such a service, Shapeshift immediately became a monthly sponsor member.
As mentioned above their sea rescue operations relies on donations from the public and businesses to meet their annual running costs of R17 million per year. Donations go directly to the rescue equipment that are needed by the bases. The recue crews are all unpaid volunteers, even the Board of Directors take no salary.
The fact that the NSRI is run on this principle of saving lives and not making money is commendable and is one more reason why Shapeshift gladly supports their cause.
What you can do
I encourage, not only other companies, but also individuals to become sponsors of the NSRI, monthly or once off. You can give as much or as little as you like.
Money, however, is not the only way that you can help the NSRI. If you live right on the coast you can become a Coast Watcher and be the eyes of the NSRI, looking out for flares and then informing the rescue crew of the bearings.
Also, if you live nearby the coast you can become a volunteer. Volunteers need to live or work in the vicinity of the coast as their reaction to an emergency needs to be immediate. Volunteers performs various duties and it is always useful for the NSRI to have new recruits who are familiar with the sea, radio operation, navigation or first aid - but they will put you to good use whatever your talent is.
For more information on how to become a sponsor or a volunteer visit their website - http://www.nsri.org.za
Sources:
http://www.nsri.org.za
Sea Rescue Magazine - Summer 2008
Author: Sean Tarr
Our lead front-end programmer and financial director, Sean wishes for a perfect world where he has "more bandwidth". He completed diplomas in Electronics and Computer Programming before becoming a founding member of Shapeshift, where he happily never wears a suit and tie to work. You can find Sean on Twitter at @shapeshiftstarr, where he'll be happy to talk about the latest advances in HTML coding or the relative merits of Asian cuisine.
