EAST Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is appealing for someone with experience of losing a loved one to drowning to help its life-saving work.

The service is going into schools with its programme about water safety and it hopes to involve someone who can share their story with pupils as part of the presentation.

The aim is to encourage young people to stay safe around the water.

The programme will include personal experiences from staff representing East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, Royal Life Saving Society, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Sussex Police.

Children will take part in an interactive experience incorporating life-saving messages around how to keep themselves and others safe both in and around water.

It will focus on the hard-hitting effects of cold water shock and the unexpected power of water.

The message is Be Water Aware.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Dawn Whittaker aid: “Response is not enough, we’ve learnt this through the experience of reducing fires with fires in the UK through awareness and education.

“What we need is preventative work.

“Currently there is a statutory obligation for swimming and water safety education at key stage two.

“But the outcome of this is that only about 50 per cent of pupils can swim 25 metres in a pool.

“The Fire and Rescue Service has a statutory duty of reducing risk in our area and education plays a key role in our drowning prevention strategy.

“Water is great for leisure and sporting activities and we want people to enjoy being beside and on and in the water safely.

“As children become older and more independent we need to ensure they are adequately prepared for the types of scenarios that so often lead to drowning.

“Nearly 50 per cent of people who drowned in 2015 had no intention of entering the water so when the worst does happen they are ill prepared for it.”

The initiative will be aimed at Years 9 and 10, children aged 14 to 15.

Over the last few years, the majority of lives lost in water have been men, predominantly between the ages of 15 and 29.