Rising Tides: Community-Wide Water Wisdom
By Christina Pasetta
The world is 75%+ water (and rising, unfortunately). All humans encounter bodies of water, from a few centimeters of drinking water to kilometers of coastline. Every able body should learn the lifesaving and life-enriching skills of water safety and swimming.
Those communities without adequate facilities to provide safe and effective swimming lessons to the young and adults lose their lives to drowning at statistically drastic amounts compared to communities with accessible, affordable, and successful swim schools.
During the hottest months, specifically dates surrounding the July 4th holiday, drownings increase dramatically. While safety commissions advise those without the ability to swim to “avoid entering the water”, many individuals risk their lives to be with family, friends, and cool off (as they should be able to do). Unfortunately, these individuals become statistics.
Of these drowning victims, most are children.
The Swimming Swan is working with these communities, non profits, and other avenues to make sure everyone can enjoy a safe swimming experience.
But Lifeguards cannot have their eyes on every child at every second & Adults accompanying children should not treat these first responders as nannies.
Communities that are underserved with facilities to teach children to swim may have less ability/support systems to have childcare, meaning additional children needing supervision with the same number of guardians, potentially. Without the income-based, community-wide push for swim lessons for all children, many families suffer the horrendous reality of drownings. The Swimming Swan has a policy assisting non profits whom work with communities where aquatic facilities and lessons are sparse or unaffordable, offering lessons to everyone.
We, as a society, only benefit when we all can achieve and enjoy, safely, our shared community experiences- pool parties, beach outings, and otherwise. One way we can assist communities is to provide affordable lessons in a shared pool area, such as an HOA or apartment complex, joining with neighborhoods to get kids out, together, and safely enjoy their community pool in smaller group lessons. These semi-private lessons allow kids to learn the specific features of their daily swimming scenario, knowing how to safely dive, cross, and play in the pool they regularly enjoy. The benefits of reduced cost, high success rate lessons, far outweigh profits when it comes to societal gains of healthy, thriving individuals who can swim.
Volunteer and give back to your community water access points: facilities, beaches, and watersheds, among others. All people deserve a beautiful place to swim, relax, and experience wildlife in their water-play. The Swimming Swan supports local non profits and their endeavors to be water-safe and you can too by swimming with us, joining your community in protecting all our precious life saver-water.
For more information, please see our: Corporate Aquatics Programs or Corporate Lifeguard Services
This article is brought to you by: The Swimming Swan
