News
It is with great pleasure, that the DDI board announce the official launch of our new regional office DDI Italy.
From today forward, the DDI Italy office will handle matters related to Italy, including member queries and assistance. The office will give support in the local language, including translation of teaching materials.
The Italy office will be headed by the new President of DDI Italy, Mr. Luca Crippa, a veteran in the disabled diving community and winner of several awards. And with many years of experience teaching scuba instructors, to dive with people with disabilities.
The first Australia based DDI Open Water Diver course recently took place in Perth, Western Australia, this was made possible through the co-operation of DiveUnlimited and the Wheelchair Sports Association of WA. Two of the association’s members, Phelim & Joel started their underwater adventure on Saturday the 21st of Feb 2015 at Bayswater Waves.
Mark “Slinky” Slingo arranged a DDI Instructor course in conjunction with the Australian International Dive Expo in Sydney early September this year. The course was – as always – very informative, engaging and educational; benefitting all dive instructors attending.
The course takes two days, with day one covering all dive theory, introduction to different types of disability, special considerations when teaching people with physical and intellectual disabilities, modified and recommended dive equipment and general standards and procedures. We started early and spent the day at Abyss CDC’s
Since June we have a new DDI Pro member! Our venezuelan friend, Wolfgang Guevara has follow successfully his DDI Pro Training this month in Ciudad de Panama. He became PADI OWSI last year in Spain and is so exited to start to teach DDI programs back in Venezuela. So if you are planning to visit the blue caribbean waters of this wonderfull country, do not hesitate to contact him! Congratulations!!!
Scuba diving has shown numerous advantages as a social and physical rehabilitation of disabled individuals, allowing them to interact in a near weightless state, with many feeling that the normal obstacles and restrictions their disability gives them on land, disappears in water when given the right equipment and training.
Paula is the first female and the first maori certified Disabed Scuba Diver in New Zealand. Paula contacted me via Parafed, enquiring about the disabled diving courses available. She is an incomplete paraplegic, contracted a virus about 5 years ago and as a result her immune system attacked her spinal cord, from being absolutely symptom free, she became paralysed within couple of hours.
Today in our dive center, Haliotis Porto, DDI dive center nº 20-037, we had a Try Scuba Diving, not an ordinary PADI Discovery Scuba Diving, which we made hundreds times before, but a DDI Try Scuba Diving. We were going to do it for the first time in an autonomous way, all by ourselves, DDI Scuba Divers Instructors. Our dive center is a recently created branch in Oporto, from our motherhouse, the PADI 5 star dive center, Haliotis.
Scott had a spinal cord injury about 9 years ago, wakeboarding in New Zealand. Since than he's wheel chair bound, he's paraplegic from waist down. He did some swimming in the past few years as a form of exercise and when Parafed Auckland forwarded him information about DDI scuba courses offered in Auckland, he contacted myself right away. We set up a meeting to discuss the training, locations, scuba gear, medical and draw up a schedule.