Teaching Our Children to Swim

Basil Waine Kong

The unbelievable suffering by families who lose children from drowning is upsetting to me for this un-necessary loss of life. I read too frequently, newspaper reports about children (as well as adults) drowning in our ocean, in pools, rivers and ponds. With the abundance of water around and in our island, the risks of not knowing how to swim and the ease of learning how to swim, why are 90% of our citizens not able to swim? I am puzzled.

All my children and grandchildren who are more than two years old can swim. It is really not difficult. Anyone who is not afraid to put his head under water can learn to swim in less than one hour. All we need is a commitment to do it. Just like we need a national commitment to end illiteracy, we need everyone into the pool. The risk of drowning is one thing but when I contemplate the hours of joy I have experienced wading in and under various waters around the world, why would we want to deprive our citizens (particularly our children) this source of joy. Tourists come to Jamaica to swim in our clean beautiful blue ocean and enjoy our white sand beaches and too many of us deny ourselves this pleasure. If we made a commitment to require swimming proficiency in our schools, in addition to saving lives and increasing activity levels, we may also discover some talented individuals who could represent us in the Olympic Games. We are gifted people looking for opportunity.

If our Minister of Education wants to be remembered for his leadership, this is something he should consider.