As schools prepare to break up for the summer, a swimming charity is urging people to take care in the water – and is sending the message to tie in with World Drowning Prevention Day on July 25.
SwimTayka, based in Wiltshire, runs swimming programmes around the world, in locations where children have little or no access to swimming lessons, so are at risk of drowning.
With this year’s World Drowning Prevention Day message being ‘Anyone can drown, no one should’, SwimTayka is urging people to take care in the water during the summer.
In 2022, there were 226 accidental fatalities in the UK in 2022, almost half of which occurred during summer months.
Bryan Avery, SwimTayka’s founder, said the combination of warm weather and the summer holidays meant more people swimming, and increased the risk of drowning incidents.
“Swimming on a hot day is very tempting, and with children off school there is plenty of opportunity, but we would urge everyone to swim only in safe locations, like pools or beaches where there are lifeguards,” he said. “Swimming is a fantastic activity and an essential life skill, but even able swimmers can get into difficulties.”
World Drowning Prevention Day, backed by the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO), started in 2021, with the goal of drawing attention to the scale and preventability of drowning worldwide.
Drowning has caused more than 2.5 million preventable deaths in the past decade. An estimated 235 600 people died from drowning in 2019 – the equivalent of 650 deaths every day. Drowning is among the 10 leading causes of death for children and young people.
The WHO has identified a number of measures to help prevent drowning, including teaching basic swimming, water safety and safe rescue skills to schoolchildren.
This is where SwimTayka comes in. The charity, founded six years ago, runs free swimming programmes in countries including Peru, Brazil and Bali, in waterside locations where drowning presents a real risk.
Programmes are supported by trained staff and volunteers, many from the UK who give up their time to help teach swimming.For more information about SwimTayka, and the volunteering opportunities, visit https://swimtayka.org/.
