Cooks Hill Surf Life Saving Club hosted it's biggest "Welcome to the beach" event to date, with more than 100 recent migrants, refugees and international students heading to Bar Beach on Saturday to learn about safety in the waves.
The two-day program, which has been held by the club for the past four years, is designed to encourage new arrivals to Australia to use the beach over the summer period by providing information about surf safety and introducing families to volunteer lifeguards.
Louis Ndagijimana, a former refugee who arrived in Australia 10 years ago, said the program had been essential in understanding Newcastle's beach culture. Saturday was the second time he attended the program, bringing his three children along.
He said in his former home of Burundi, a landlocked nation in Africa, swimming was not common due to the presence of crocodiles and hippopotamus in waterways.
"It's not easy for someone from that area to feel confident swimming anywhere," he said.
While Mr Ndagijimana had come to the beach before he first participated in the program in 2017, he had previously preferred to take his family to swimming pools.
"I did not know what the flags meant and the surf life saving guards, I didn't think I could talk to them, or that if I have a problem they will come and support me," he said. "But from the introduction and information, now I know how to be safe on the beach.
"I was very happy to see all these people from different places coming on Saturday," he said.
John Mayo, the director of member services at Cooks Hill surf club, was one of the around 40 volunteers present on Saturday helping deliver first part of the program, which will continue this coming Saturday.
He said participants had a "whale of a time". They participated in an information session with the support of interpreters, enjoyed a barbecue lunch and a swim.
"One man said to me that he already knew how to go to the beach but that he had a lot of trauma fleeing his own country and he found walking on the beach very good therapy. He said he wanted to come and support the community in using the beach because it's really therapeutic," Mr Mayo said.
This year's program was coordinated by the surf club in conjunction with the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle's Development and Relief Agency [DARA] as well as other services.
DARA project liaison officer John Sandy said the program removed a sense of fear that new arrivals to Newcastle could have about entering an unknown environment.
"Participants feel welcomed, they feel a sense of belonging and they have fun," Mr Sandy said.
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