Survival Swimming is Key to Stopping Childhood Drownings
A Silent Epidemic
Survival swimming instruction stands out as the most potent and effective approach to mitigating childhood drownings.
Increased parental education regarding risks of drowning can also help mitigate drownings by the 1-5 age group.
Drowning, a global epidemic, claims over 372,000 lives annually, with Vietnam ranking among the top countries with high drowning rates.
Despite efforts by authorities, inadequate capacity hinders the establishment of effective prevention programs. In Vietnam, where about 5 lives are lost to drowning daily, lack of swimming skills exacerbates the problem, especially among children. Drowning is a leading cause of mortality among Vietnamese children under 15.
Swim for Life Vietnam seeks to address this by providing survival swimming education and raising community awareness, but sustained support is essential for its success.
1. Globally, drowning claims more children’s lives than the cumulative fatalities resulting from measles, polio, whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria, and tuberculosis combined.
2. 70% of primary and junior high school children in Vietnam can’t swim (approx. 10 million kids).
3. 95% of children aged four and above who succumbed to drowning lacked basic swimming skills.
4. Every year, about 2,000 children in Vietnam succumb to drowning. That’s over five young lives lost each day, truly a preventable tragedy.
5. Vietnam has over 41,000 km (approximately 26,000 miles) of inland waterways, 3,260 km (approximately 2,000 miles) of ocean coastline, and countless ponds and lakes.
Our parent organization, Golden West Humanitarian Foundation. has been a pivotal force in addressing critical safety needs post-conflict, including unexploded ordnance removal and now, drowning prevention.
