Wow, what a fascinating discussion topic. And so many opinions.You would think getting parents and communities to understand the importance of teaching every child to swim would be easy, but good luck. Fear of the water from previous generations, lack of funding for instructors and inability to convince school administrators that this should be a priority are road blocks. Communities that traditionally have pools and better socioeconomics have more swimmers than those that are resource poor. It is not secret that drowning rates are higher amongst minorities and that these populations generally lack access to water and more so swim lessons. YMCA First Wave, USA Swimmings SPLASH, the Josh Project, Swim Oakland are all programs that are trying to deal with this issue but until there is an all out publicly funded effort with resource allocation it will never be enough. In the early 1900's 11 people per 100,000 that swam drown, today it is 1 per 100,000 people, as an industry we have come along way, but until parents protect their kids better, public learn to swim is free and lifeguards do a better job of protecting bathers this will always be a problem.
Wow, what a fascinating discussion topic. And so many opinions.You would think getting parents and communities to understand the importance of teaching every child to swim would be easy, but good luck. Fear of the water from previous generations, lack of funding for instructors and inability to convince school administrators that this should be a priority are road blocks. Communities that traditionally have pools and better socioeconomics have more swimmers than those that are resource poor. It is not secret that drowning rates are higher amongst minorities and that these populations generally lack access to water and more so swim lessons. YMCA First Wave, USA Swimmings SPLASH, the Josh Project, Swim Oakland are all programs that are trying to deal with this issue but until there is an all out publicly funded effort with resource allocation it will never be enough. In the early 1900's 11 people per 100,000 that swam drown, today it is 1 per 100,000 people, as an industry we have come along way, but until parents protect their kids better, public learn to swim is free and lifeguards do a better job of protecting bathers this will always be a problem.
