Community Teaching Water Survival Skills: Lifesaving Lessons for Phuket Youth

[Georgealbert]

 

Picture courtesy CIB

 

The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), through the Marine Police Division, has joined forces with the GRIP IT Foundation to launch the “Everybody Swims” initiative, a programme dedicated to teaching water survival skills to children in Phuket.

 

Held at the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation swimming pool in Wichit Subdistrict, the project welcomed schoolchildren from Pa Khlok School and youngsters from the Rawai community. The aim: to improve water safety awareness and equip local youth with essential skills that could save their lives or the lives of others in an emergency.

 

The sessions include basic swimming techniques, methods for floating and self-rescue and how to assist someone who is drowning. Organisers say the programme is about more than just learning to swim, it’s about instilling confidence, fostering responsibility and reducing the risk of water-related accidents among children.

 

With drowning remaining a leading cause of death among Thai children, especially in coastal and island provinces, initiatives like “Everybody Swims” are seen as critical to creating safer communities.

 

The organisers hope to expand the programme to other schools and communities in the near future.

 

 

  Adapted by Asean Now from CIB 2025-05-30.

 

 

 

 

[ikke1959]

It should be mandatorily in all schools to teach kids swimming surely the low grades... instead learn to walk with a stick for boyscout, standing in line everymorning and listen to endless talkings of directors and monks and more other useless activities. This would save many lives all over the country

[fredwiggy]

6 minutes ago, ikke1959 said:

It should be mandatorily in all schools to teach kids swimming surely the low grades... instead learn to walk with a stick for boyscout, standing in line everymorning and listen to endless talkings of directors and monks and more other useless activities. This would save many lives all over the country

True, a field trip to the nearest lake with all children learning the basics, although that would take a teacher that can swim, and it seems many adults here have never been shown the basics themselves. It's a parents job first also.

[PJ71]

42 minutes ago, ikke1959 said:

It should be mandatorily in all schools to teach kids swimming surely the low grades... instead learn to walk with a stick for boyscout, standing in line everymorning and listen to endless talkings of directors and monks and more other useless activities. This would save many lives all over the country

Couldn't agree more.

[Olmate]

24 minutes ago, PJ71 said:

Couldn't agree more.

Get  Ozzie Laurie Laurence! " Do the 5"! 🙏

[impulse]

There's another take here...  As it stands, most kids are afraid of the water.  Teaching kids water survival could motivate more of them to get in the water because they no longer fear it.

 

I don't claim to know which is safer and which would result in more drownings.  Personally, I'm in favor of teaching kids to swim.  But I do acknowledge the other side of the coin.

 

[ikke1959]

4 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

True, a field trip to the nearest lake with all children learning the basics, although that would take a teacher that can swim, and it seems many adults here have never been shown the basics themselves. It's a parents job first also.

here in Phetchaburi is a big swimmingpool on a sportspark.. nobody is using it, so it could be used for kids swimming, just cross the street. and the school has 4000 kids P1 to P6.. so start with the lower grades 1 hour a week instead of physics and after 1 year almost all kids would be able to swim