Mr Alnseer may be brave but he is not the stereotype seen on TV's Bondi Rescue. Yet the young Syrian dentist and first aid officer who arrived in Australia with his sister Lama five months ago is exactly the kind of recruit that Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club is targeting.

On Thursday the club launched its first scholarship to encourage new migrants to complete the Bronze Medallion and become active patrol members. The scholarship is not only about making the club more diverse, it's about reducing the large number of people from non-English backgrounds who have fatally drowned on Sydney's beaches.

People born overseas were over-represented among those who had fatally drowned, said the Royal Life Saving Australia's national research manager Amy Peden. They represented 30 to 40 per cent of deaths, she said, which was higher than the estimated 28 per cent of the population born overseas, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

The water safety group is reviewing five to 10 years of deaths recorded in the National Fatal Drowning Database to better understand the size of the problem, and prevent further drownings.

Many people came from countries "without a culture of swimming and water safety," Ms Peden said.

That was the case for most of the 70 new migrants attending a water safety day at Tamarama on Thursday. Only a few had been to the beach before, and only three said they were good swimmers. Of those who could swim, most had taught themselves.

According to Royal Life Saving research fewer children from non-English backgrounds could swim 50 metres and float for 90 seconds compared with other children, by the end of primary school.

Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club president Tim Murray said it was the club's new mission to be inclusive, and reflect the make-up of Australian society. Having people from non-English speaking backgrounds patrol the beach would also help prevent further drownings.

"And the surf club is a great way to become part of Australian society," Mr Murray said.

Among the migrants at the water safety day, even those such as Mr Alnseer who had swum at a beach before said they were scared of the pounding surf at Tamarama.

Their biggest fear at the beach, however, was sharks.

Mr Murray said he was unaware of any deaths from shark attacks at Tamarama but each year about 200 people were rescued from dangerous rips.

Laxmi Kumar Limbu, a member of the Nepalese community - which mourned four drowning victims last summer - said he used to go swimming in Nepal but it was "nothing like here".

In February, 23-year-old Nepalese student Shristi Bhandari drowned when she went swimming with Sudeep Uprety, who also died when he was trapped under a rock in the ocean pool at Maroubra. The community raised $12,125 to return Ms Bhandari's body to Nepal for burial.

The community had been talking about the drownings, seven in total over the past few years, and the word was "be careful".