Aminatu Noah at all times makes certain her son Elyjha’s telephone is charged. Once in a while, she likes to revisit his pictures and movies he captured of them collectively — taking part in within the park, going to the flicks, laughing, singing.
“I realized when he died, that he had made memories of everything. Everything is on this phone, and it keeps me alive,” Noah stated. “They say memories never die, and it helps when you can smile.”
The pictures remind her of the 16-year-old whose Fortnite classes saved her up at evening, who dragged her to the Smorgasburg meals festivals on weekends, who even used the cash she gave him to purchase his buddies meals, garments and college provides. In his telephone, she additionally found new issues about her son, like his ardour for rapping, and his function because the buddy that everybody got here to for recommendation and encouragement.
Elyjha was one among seven New Yorkers who drowned in the summertime of 2024. Photograph courtesy of Aminatu Noah
Elyjha, a rising junior on the Academy for Faculty Preparation & Profession Exploration in Flatbush, went lacking off Jacob Riis Seaside on the night of June 21, 2024 — only a week earlier than his seventeenth birthday — alongside along with his buddy Christian Perkins, 17. The boys have been two of seven New Yorkers to drown off metropolis seashores that yr.
On some mornings, Noah’s coronary heart feels so heavy she struggles to get away from bed. However she at all times does. When not working in tech assist at Brooklyn hospitals, she’s in school rooms and public boards, sharing her story and stressing the significance of water security consciousness.
“I try to go everywhere I can to spread the word,” she stated. “I’m just trying to do the work, save lives if I can, and not have any other family go through what I’ve been dealing with.”
Noah’s companion in advocacy is Kibret Perkins, Christian’s mom. In Could, they joined elected officers on the opening of Rockaway Seaside to honor their sons and advocate for improved water security measures and consciousness. The ceremony happened within the shadow of the drowning dying of Brandon Figueroa, an 18-year-old from the Bronx, who had gone lacking simply three days earlier.
Figueroa’s dying took a toll on Noah. “I felt like I was reliving what his mother was going through, hearing she was at the beach, searching. I did that too — I was going to the beach every day,” she stated.
Noah and Kibret Perkins share their tales in public boards throughout the town to advocate for higher water security training. Photograph courtesy of Aminatu Noah
Final yr, at the very least six folks drowned off metropolis seashores. Every loss reignites Noah’s dedication to her mission.
“I’m just like, hey, this is happening too much. We’ve got to do something about it,” she stated.
Elyjha and Christian didn’t know the risks of rip currents and ocean swimming. Noah is aware of far too many New York Metropolis youngsters share that consciousness hole. She hopes her story conveys the devastating influence that rip currents can have on complete households; in Noah’s case, the ocean took her solely youngster.
A very powerful viewers for Noah is kids in Black and brown communities like hers, who usually have the least entry to swim instruction in a metropolis the place free classes are restricted and personal choices worth out many working-class households.
Flatbush, the place Noah raised Elyjha as a single mother, didn’t have a public pool till this previous February, when the $141 million Shirley Chisholm Recreation Middle opened. On the time of Elyjha’s dying, his highschool, situated within the Erasmus Corridor Academic Campus, had a pool however no swimming instruction.
The pool at Shirley Chisholm Recreation Middle (pictured, at proper) is the one public pool in Flatbush. Photograph courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Pictures Workplace
In 2025, the town launched the “Elyjha Chandler and Christian Perkins Swim for Life” class at Erasmus Corridor as a part of Mayor Eric Adams’ $5.5 million funding to develop free swim security courses — fulfilling a promise Adams made to Noah.
In June, Noah instructed her story to the world in a video created by Rising Tide Impact, a NYC-based water security training nonprofit, as a part of its marketing campaign “Water Wise.”
Within the video, Noah imparts a easy message: know what a rip present is, by no means swim with no lifeguard, and what you be taught at present can save somebody tomorrow.
The general public service announcement is directed at “those who need to hear it most,” stated Rising Tide Impact’s founder Kate Krause, singling out 15-to 18-year-olds — who usually go to the seaside with out parental supervision.
“We are going to where they are, which is largely social media,” Krause stated. The video builds on “Respect the Rip,” a rip present security information featured on MTA buses.
Krause, a water security advocate and commissioner on the New York State Short-term Fee to Forestall Childhood Drowning, met Noah a number of months after Elyjha’s dying. The 2 have been buddies and shut collaborators in advocacy ever since. Noah commonly speaks to Krause’s youth Swim Corps individuals, and, earlier this month, took her first swim lesson ever with Krause.
“It became clear to me that I need to lift her voice and help her get the message out because we believe that a mother’s voice can do what statistics cannot do,” Krause stated.
The burden of spreading water security consciousness shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of advocates and grieving dad and mom, Noah stated — which is why she’s pushing for mandated water security instruction in all faculties.
Noah commonly speaks to Krause’s Swim Corps college students and took her first lesson earlier this month. Photograph courtesy of Kate Krause
“I realized there’s so many kids who don’t know about swim safety,” she stated. “Why not start in the schools? Why not make it part of their curriculum?”
A 332-page report by the fee from final September leads with a suggestion to “make water safety education a mandatory component of the PreK-12 curriculum in all schools, regardless of the availability of a pool classroom facility.”
The water security curriculum doesn’t really require a pool in any respect, Krause stated, so it ought to be straightforward to implement universally — at the very least in idea.
Nevertheless, regardless of persistent efforts from lawmakers and advocates alike, mandating water security training in New York faculties has up to now been a Sisyphean activity.
The New York State Senate and Meeting are mulling three proposals to mandate statewide water security instruction in faculties, launched by state Sens. Joseph Addabbo of Queens, state Sen. Cordell Cleare of Manhattan, and Meeting Member Stacey Pheffer Amato, additionally from Queens. That is Addabbo’s seventh-straight try and mandate such instruction.
New York Metropolis council members and the Mayor’s Workplace have tried to enhance entry to water security training, to various levels of success. In 2023, a Metropolis Council invoice requiring swim courses for all second-graders handed, however Adams later reduce it from the finances. The $5.5 million he later dedicated to spice up swim packages introduced instruction to 18,000 second-graders, a few quarter of the entire second-grade inhabitants in NYC’s public faculties.
On June 12, Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced an enlargement of the town’s summer season “Learn to Swim” program to succeed in some 16,000 minors, up from practically 6,000 final yr — though it serves a restricted variety of kids by a lottery system.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the town’s Study to Swim program this summer season.File picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Some lawmakers have taken one other route to stop drownings: enhancing pool infrastructure, lifeguard corps, and entry to academic sources. Metropolis Council just lately handed a regulation requiring the Division of Parks and Recreation to develop written water security materials for public college college students. The same invoice, the Each Youngster a Swimmer Act, was signed into regulation by Governor Kathy Hochul final September.
These legislative actions signify significant progress, however fall in need of the curriculum mandates advocates like Krause and Noah are preventing for.
“Not enough is being done, and we cannot get comfortable or complacent,” Krause stated.
Whereas Noah acknowledges progress is shifting slowly, she stays optimistic.
“They say everything takes time. This is just the beginning,” she stated. She hopes to satisfy with Mamdani to make a direct plea for mandated water security instruction, in addition to different rapid adjustments.
“We have to get more signs on these beaches, we have to get more lifeguards. We have got to do better,” she stated. She and Perkins are calling to increase lifeguard shifts previous 6 p.m., as many drownings off metropolis seashores, like Elyjha and Christian’s, happen after hours.
Noah and Perkins are pushing to increase lifeguard hours on metropolis seashores. File picture by Erica Worth
Town has climbed out of the pressing lifeguard scarcity of previous summers — it staffed 1,082 in 2025 and is on tempo to cross that this yr following an “aggressive recruitment campaign,” per a NYC Parks spokesperson. Town has additionally unveiled a brand new fleet of “gator” autos to enhance lifeguard response instances, and works with a companion company to establish swimmers in misery utilizing drones.
Noah additionally desires the Nationwide Park Service, which manages Jacob Riis Park, to erect a memorial for Elyjha and Christian, which might remind swimmers of the risks posed by rip currents, and the profound loss that some households have confronted due to them.
Noah says she’s fortunate. She has a powerful assist system, together with buddies, household, Perkins, and Elyjha’s buddies, who name or go to her a number of instances every week. Watching them graduate highschool and start their lives whereas carrying the grief they share brings her deep satisfaction and hope, she stated.
Noah carries her son’s reminiscence along with her, and commonly speaks along with his buddies, who’re shifting on to new phases of their lives. Pictures courtesy of Aminatu Noah
On June 20, Noah and Perkins held their second annual basketball event in reminiscence of their sons at Foster Park in Flatbush, the place Elyjha would usually hoop after college. They hoped for about 70 children — over 300 confirmed up. Noah’s coronary heart felt much less heavy that day.
Some days are more durable than others, however Noah at all times has her assist system behind her, telling her to maintain going.
“I’m just trying my best to keep my head above ground each day I get up, because I know there’s a bigger mission,” she stated. “This is not about me.”
