AWARD YEAR
2015
CATEGORY
Play & Learning
GOALS
Quality Education
KEYWORDS
water safety, buoyancy aid, children
COUNTRY
United Kingdom
DESIGNED BY
James Benson, University of Huddersfield
WEBSITE
http://bottlebuoy.co.uk
BottleBuoy
A low-cost buoyancy aid to support the teaching of children from low-economic countries to swim.
Each year 372,000 people drown (WHO 2014) with 90% of these deaths occurring in low/ middle income countries due to children not being taught to swim. In these countries, the monetary cost of water safety infrastructure and rescue equipment is too high; this combined with poor swimming ability is a major factor. BottleBuoy addresses this global challenge and is purposely designed to support local manufacture and social enterprises that seek to teach young children to swim. BottleBuoy is a single-part, wooden product that utilises three reclaimed PET soft drinks bottles to deliver an accessible one euro product. The original bottle caps are cleverly reused to provide a secure anchoring point for the 2-litre bottles. While its primary aim is a swimming training aid, BottleBuoy can be easily upgraded to become an effective rescue device to enhance child safety at public water areas.