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HANDICAPPED SCUBA ASSOCIATION SOUTH AFRICA

WHO ARE WE AND WHAT DO WE DO?

HSASA is a non-profit company that specialises in training people with disabilities, on how to scuba dive. Our NPC number is: 2014/027833/08
HSASA NPC is an entity on its own and functions independently from any dive school or instructor.

Scuba Diving has a great rehabilitative effect on people living with disabilities – so great, that it restores their self-confidence and human dignity, as well as gives them a new perspective in life. After being trained on how to scuba dive, they do not only gain new skills in recreational diving, but they also meet new long-lasting friends and have a sense of belonging. Scuba diving opens up a new world to disabled people, who thought that their lives are over. After being trained, the disabled divers start to live more adventurously and live their lives to the full.

When diving (and with the help of their dive buddies), the physically challenged and wheelchair bound people, get the opportunity to be free from gravity for approximately 50 minutes (duration of a dive) and are able to move as freely as they like. These disabled people’s outlook on life, are permanently changed.

People with various disabilities, ranging from: spina bifida, hearing loss, amputees, paraplegics, quadriplegics, muscular dystrophy, sight impairment, hemiplegics, cerebral palsy, cognitive disability and locked-in syndrome, are all trained.

About our Instructors and dive buddies:
The Adaptive Instructors and Adaptive Dive Buddies, who assist the disabled divers under water (who gets no compensation, but they do it out of love and compassion), receive specialized training. During the Adaptive instructors- and dive buddy training courses, the instructors and dive buddies receive medical information on various disabilities, through interactive lectures. When their practical part of the course starts, they literally have to ‘act out’ the various disabilities, so that they can experience and have a better understanding of what a disabled person (with a specific medical condition) will experience, when under water.

The Vision and Mission of Handicapped Scuba Association South Africa:
We at Handicapped Scuba Association South Africa are dedicated and aim to change and improve, the physical and social well-being of people of various races who are living with disabilities. We do this through offering them the opportunity of the recreational sport of Scuba Diving, so that they too can realize that life does not end with a disability; that they too can live an adventurous life and are able to do the same things as abled bodies – they just use a different means of getting the same things done.

We are dedicated to ensure that the disabled people whom are trained by our Instructors, are given the same opportunity to receive quality training, certification and dive adventures – just like the able-bodied divers do.

We not merely just aim to train disabled people and to let them have a once off experience – NO!, it is also our desire and focus to assist these disabled divers, to continue to dive and also experience dives in the sea, as well as to get them socially involved.

We organize diving trips to Umkomaas, Sodwana and Mozambique.