Swim Vietnam Update 2022
Jane Wake introduced our guest speaker David Siddall. David, a Rotarian of some thirty-seven years, is a member of Australian Friends for Life, a small group of volunteers, who seek to provide practical and financial support for the charity Swim Vietnam.
In a country with heavy rainfall and so many rivers and rice paddies, child drowning is a major concern in Vietnam. However, it is estimated that the drowning rate can be reduced significantly simply by teaching children how to swim and survive in the water.
The mission of Swim Vietnam is to cooperate with local and national governments in training methods for swimming and water safety to reduce drowning rates. The plan is to train Vietnamese people as swim teachers and educators to bring swimming and water safety programs to their communities, quickly and sustainably as possible.
Vietnam has 2000 km of coastline, 2000 rivers, extreme tides and a monsoon season. These factors contribute to 16 drownings per day; over half of whom are children. Swim and survive programs have reduced rates of drowning by 90%. The program is very low budget. Just $27.50 can teach a child to swim. Classroom water safety education is a priority along with swimming survival and teacher training.
In the past 14 years, since its inception in 2008, Swim Vietnam's achievements include 30,907 children taught to swim, 1,563 swim teachers trained, 3,670 water safety educators trained and 247,520 children educated in water safety techniques.
Through their connection with Karrinyup Rotary, the Australian Friends for Life group were able to acquire the SFM bookstall trailer, when previous fundraiser Jenny Gartrell needed to move on. This enables a steady source of fundraising for the group. David also said that the previous donation from the RC Karrinyup has enabled 429 children in Vietnam to be taught to swim and thanked the club for the support.