Albury Council campaign, Water Is No Joke, promotes river safety

The council has launched a new water safety campaign using young people from the community to help prevent drownings in the Murray River.

Water Is No Joke can be seen on TV, cinema, outdoors and social media until the end of March and is an initiative of the Inland Waterways Drowning Prevention Strategy.

The strategy also aims to add a signage system with emergency location numbers and help points, which would be home to rescue equipment such as life rings, at popular river spots.

Filmed at Noreuil Park and Lake Hume foreshores, the video targets behavioural change in younger males and the region's culturally and linguistically diverse community, both identified as statistically high-risk groups.

Messages include checking beneath the surface of the water especially if it's fast flowing, not jumping from a height if it doesn't feel right, and swimming with a mate rather than alone.

The campaign aims to raise awareness of the dangers that lurk in some of the Border's favourite swimming locations.

Albury mayor Kylie King hoped higher risk groups would be able to relate to the campaign and take something positive from it.

"We've been faced with some terrible tragedies in our region's waterways, and we need to all look after each other and make sure we do everything we can to prevent it from happening again," she said.

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