Laurie Lawrence is ACA Qld's patron. Laurie is a highly accomplished athlete, coach, businessman and family man, who is dedicated to the welfare of Australian children.
Laurie is famous for his humour, zest for life and spirited personality. He is one of ACA Qld's favourite Australians because of his direct and honest manner and the whole-hearted way he applies himself to all he is involved in.
He is a former Australian Rugby Union representative and a world class swimming coach. Despite having one lung and being an asthmatic, Laurie's love for rugby saw him overcome these handicaps to fight for, and gain, selection in the Australian Rugby Union side, which toured New Zealand as the Wallabies in 1964.
Laurie has represented Australia as a swimming coach in Brisbane's 1982, Edinburgh's 1986 and Auckland's 1990 Commonwealth Games, and also at the 1984 Los Angeles, 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. During those international contests, Laurie's pupils broke many national, Commonwealth and World Records in a number of gold medal winning performances. In 1996 he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an honour coach.
Today, Laurie is a highly successful small businessman. He operates the now famous Laurie Lawrence Learn To Swim School, which specialises in teaching children with physical disabilities, speech and/or hearing impairments.
Kids Alive
Laurie is also the founder of the Kids Alive Drowning Prevention Campaign, which was launched in 1988 to reduce the number of children drowning. ACA Queensland works alongside Laurie to deliver his water safety messages to early childhood educators and families, and we aim to achieve Laurie’s goal of zero child drownings. The government is also working with Laurie, and is investing approximately $1 million in an attempt to halve the number of drowning deaths in Australia by 2020.
Laurie’s Kids Alive program includes a range of educational materials that focus on water safety messages for the pool, home, beach and farm settings. These materials include 4 books, children’s DVDs, and music CDs that are distributed free to every early learning centre in Australia. The program builds on the highly successful Living with Water DVD, with new songs, videos and books aimed at improving water safety at the beach, around pools, in homes and on farms. The educational materials will be distributed for free to all early learning centres in Australia.
We aim for the Kids Alive program to be included in every organisation that works with children under five years of age, both formally and informally. We urge all early learning services to include this program as an integral part of their early childhood educational program.
ACA Queensland is committed to promoting the Kids Alive Drowning Prevention program. With your help, we can achieve Laurie’s goal of zero child drownings throughout Australia.
Remember:
- Fence the pool
- Shut the gate
- Teach your kids to swim (it’s great)
- Supervise – watch your mate and
- Learn how to resuscitate!
For more information on the Kids Alive Program, go to www.kidsalive.com.au.
We are proud to be forging such a close relationship with Laurie and look forward to maintaining a long and productive relationship.