School-Aged Programs
Learn to Swim
Survival swimming is a powerful and effective way to prevent drowning. Research has shown this to be 93% effective. Our swimming instructors are trained to teach children survival swimming skills and basic stroke development. At the completion of our course, based on the internationally recognized AUSTSWIM curriculum, students should be able to swim 25 meters independently and tread water for 2 minutes. Additionally, they learn how to float and many other survival skills and safety knowledge. Each year Swim for Life provides refresher training courses to ensure our swimming instructors abide by the international standards of learn-to-swim programs and in 2017, we began offering AUSTSWIM International license to teach Swimming and Water Safety for our teachers.
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Water Safety Education
In addition to our Learn-to-Swim Program, Swim for Life has implemented a Water Safety Education program in our province. The intervention involves a 45 to 60-minute presentation and demonstration that can be effectively delivered in a classroom or all-school setting; thus, we can dramatically expand our reach while minimizing cost. In August of 2016, we partnered with Swim Vietnam, a leading INGO in drowning prevention in Vietnam who provides internationally-accredited swim and water safety training. Swim Vietnam taught water safety techniques to over 400 teachers and staff within our province to begin our Water Safety Education program. Our goal is to empower all primary schools within Quang Binh Province to engage in a “100% participation” initiative by offering the water safety demonstration and presentation to all students. In the fall of 2016, these teachers reached over 72,000 children, every primary school student in Quang Binh. Additionally, we created and implemented pre and post assessments to ensure strong learning outcomes, and to continuously improve both the content and delivery of these critical water safety messages. We are now partnering with Dr. Bill Ramos from Indiana University, Dr. Linda Quan from Seattle Children's hospital and Dr. Aminur Rahman from SwimSafe Bangladesh. Additionally, we are collaborating with other INGO's working on drowning prevention in Vietnam, including Swim Vietnam, Water Safety Vietnam, world Vision, AWSOM project and Hue Help. We are hoping to determine effectiveness rates of the Water Safety Education program as a stand-alone intervention, something that to date has not be done anywhere in the world.
