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Thursday, 11 April, 2024
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Microgrid sees tails wagging Lifestyle Meridian in Clyde North is saving homeowners up to 30 per cent off each household bill with an innovative solar energy and battery microgrid, the largest of its kind in the country in a residential community. Story page 4
Lifestyle Meridian construction manager Jennifer De Baize and the village star Bella are celebrating the innovation. 399218 Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS
Deaths spark plea By Violet Li and AAP As six members of Casey’s Indian community have lost their lives to drowning this year, a community volunteer is calling for more water safety awareness while stressing the need for swimming lessons. Clyde residents Dharmvir Singh, 38, and Gurjinder Singh, 65, drowned after leaping into a pool at a Gold Coast hotel to try to save the younger man’s child on Sunday 31 March. The shocking news came only two months after Victoria’s worst drowning incident in almost two decades where three Clyde North residents - Kirti Bedi, 20, Suhani Anand, 20, and Jagjeet Singh Anand, 23 - and Reema Sondhi from India, drowned during holidays at Forrest Caves Beach on Phillip Island on Wednesday 24 January. On 12 January, Cranbourne East man Sahil
Panwar, 25, was swept out to sea in the vicinity of the Bourne Creek Trestle Bridge at Kilcunda Surf Beach when he was trying to retrieve his sunglasses in the water. The Officer Sikh Temple Gurudwara Siri Guru Nanak Darbar held a voluntary prayer service on Thursday 4 April for the shattered families of Dharmvir and Gurjinder. Harpreet Singh Kandra, a community volunteer who helped organise the prayer service, said they tried to build a bit of water safety awareness in the community on the day. “A lot of people in the Indian community do not know swimming, which is not good. We did tell people that it’s good for everyone to learn to swim,” he said. “If you can’t learn swimming, you need to be extra careful with water when you are on a holiday.” He said there was a need for the media and
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the community to build up awareness on a wider scale. “When news is new, people remember it and people can relate to it. But once the news dies down, people again get used to their lives,” he said. “I have spoken with a few community leaders, and I don’t think it’s a problem in the wider community. “Again, we are using the opportunity to make the community aware of water safety and the need for us to learn swimming. “People come here when they relocate from other countries. They learn driving because driving is an important skill to have here, and we are stressing that swimming is also an important state skill to acquire.” Holt MP Cassandra Fernando said she was deeply heartbroken about the recent drownings of Dharmvir Singh and Gurjinder Singh,
which followed other drowning incidents that have taken the lives of people from the community. “Every life lost is one too many,” she said. “When I heard about the incident that took place on the Gold Coast, I could not help but reflect that I had only recently attended the funeral of the four people from the Indian community who lost their lives at Forrest Caves Beach. “It’s important to drive more awareness about being safe in and around the water. “While swimming lessons are often a staple in Australian schools, it is important that this is not the case around the world. Similarly, while we’ve been taught to ‘swim between the flags’ since childhood, not everyone is aware of this.” Continued page 3
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