Water Babies

We watch closely as pint-sized scuba divers swim along the bottom of the 12-feet deep swimming pool, grabbing stuffed toys that lay scattered around them. Through ripples in the clear blue water, we can make out the outlines of small arms throwing underwater frisbees and rubber torpedoes, moving almost in slow motion. Intermittent bursts of bubbles, rising furiously to the surface are telling signs of the excitement below.

Just three hours earlier, these young divers had never even seen a scuba diving gear, much less don them. Aged between 8 to 13, these children are the lucky participants of the Kids Scuba introductory scuba diving programme called 'Underwater Adventure for Kids'. Scuba diving for children is a relatively new sport - whilst adult diving establishments such as the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) has been around since the 60's, one of the earliest international scuba diving establishments for children, US-based Scuba Rangers, was only established in 1999. But this only means that much of the main hurdles associated with scuba diving have already been ironed out earlier, as the sport of scuba diving matures into its existing standard of practice. The scuba diving programme for children that are available today basically follows this standard of practice.

In Malaysia, introductory scuba diving programmes for children are available at selected diving establishments, including Kids Scuba. Founded by Syed Abdul Rahman, a certified PADI Assistant Instructor (a level higher than a PADI Master Diver) with 12 years of diving experience, together with a partner who is himself a PADI Master Instructor (the second highest level recognised by PADI), Kids Scuba was inspired when Syed's daughter, Nadhira, became Malaysia's youngest PADI-registered scuba diver at the age of 8 in 2001.

But there's more than meets the eye with Kids Scuba's introductory scuba diving programme for children. When we arrived at the swimming pool area of the impressive Maybank Training Centre in Bangi, the children had just finished watching the scuba diving introduction video. Syed corralled the group of eager, would-be divers into a big circle on the floor, and once they had settled down, began his bid in nurturing future marine-conservation advocates. He asked how many of them have ever been to the beach. All the children raised their hands. Then he asked how many have ever seen a turtle on the beach. But this time, only a couple of tentative hands went up.
 
“You want to know why?” Syed asked in a suddenly serious tone, “It's because turtles are now becoming an endangered species. There are fewer and fewer turtles each year because our oceans and beaches are getting dirtier and polluted day by day. If this goes on, there will be no more turtles in our oceans in the future.”
 
From the sombre looks on the children's faces, it was clear that he had hit a soft spot. But Syed believes it was necessary to drive home the point - one that would hopefully lead the children to feel strongly about marine conservation. He continued sharing simple, yet valuable reminders with the children explaining how they could help in conservation efforts. He even added a memorable graphic note when he described how turtles have been found dead from suffocation after trying to consume plastic bags carelessly thrown into the sea, mistaking them for jellyfish, one of the turtles' staple diet.

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