MOPH launches child drowning prevention campaign

NONTHABURI, 4 March 2016 (NNT) – The Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) has launched a campaign urging adults to prevent children drowning as the school break is approaching.

Director General of the Department of Disease Control Dr. Amnuay Gajeena has presided over a press conference announcing the campaign which began in response to the alarming child drowning statistics over the past decade.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 140,000 children aged under 15 lose their lives in the water each year. Drowning is the third greatest cause of death in juveniles after meningitis and AIDS.

In Thailand, drowning is the number one cause of child death. For example water-related fatalities in the country are 14 times higher than those resulting from dengue fever. The Bureau of Policy and Strategy revealed that drowning killed one child every eight hours on average. Over the past 10 years, more than 10,000 juveniles have died from drowning.

Dr. Amnuay said the campaign aimed to raise awareness of child safety among adults. Various activities will be held to urge families, schools, day care centers and communities to pay even closer attention to minors.


-- NNT 2016-03-04

child drowning prevention campaign?

= swimming lessons?

Teach them to swim.

A minuscule proportion of the funds "creatively diverted" from the education budget would be sufficient.

Teach them to swim ? Who is going to teach them ? Thai adults cannot swim, some do a strange double arm doggy paddle that takes them about 5 mtrs before they push off the bottom with their feet ... Foreigners cant teach them to swim - they wont give you a Work Permit. I am a qualified Life Guard and worked in the UK at council swimming pools part time and one of best friends here in LoS was a gym teacher and both us would love to set up a swimming school business......but we would be in breach of our Visa rules....

There is also the cultural barrier about brown skin.....they go in the water in cotton T shirts and Denim jeans to stop getting sun burn.... they can't swim a stroke, coupled with the fact that nearly every Thai I have ever met won't walk the length of themselves, they are totally unfit and the strain and weight of wet cloths in the water drags them under.

I know of 4 different pools offering lessons within 25 km of my home. 3 in Chiang Rai and 1 in Wiang Chai, hardly the most developed of reguons. As I said teach them to swim. The teacher training establishments are churning out PE teachers, it's not unreasonable to expect them to be able to teach the children to a win.

Edited March 4, 201610 yr by JAG

The Chiang Mai International Rotary Club in Chiang Mai is working with Kru Payu Swim to offer a drowning prevention and water safety course to local school children. We have modified a water safety program developed in Australia and have plans to use the Rotary network to train water safety instructors in Chiang Mai first and then nationally (teach the teacher). We are in the pilot testing stages, but have already completed Three 10-hour courses of instruction for a total of about 100 students. It works! The big problem is most children do not have bathing suits, googles, swim caps, access to a pool, money to pay an instructor. We estimate we can provide 10 hours of instruction and all the equipment needed, the pool, and instructors for about 500 Baht per kid.

In addition to the lessons in the pool, we have developed a YouTube 12-lesson set of instructional films, we will be posting these via Kru Payu Swim soon.

Contact me if you want to get involved or have ideas: [email protected].

3 children A DAY! According to the above figures over the last TEN YEARS & they are just starting to think about it. Staggering ineptitude by Thai authorities.

For you TAT/sports madame:

In stead of manipulating figures on tourism , you may want do some work on this one. Do some communicating with the health department.

Build swimming pools for goodness sake.

Possibly kids might be taken away from their I-phones for a few hours and learn to swim and at it, lose some weight.

Or is there no money in it?

Shame on you madame, you are and have been failing miserably.

Edited March 5, 201610 yr by wabothai

They should always have an adult who is a strong swimmer present. Unfortunately many families let their children go out and do what they want without supervision. Education in this has to start with the family

The Chiang Mai International Rotary Club in Chiang Mai is working with Kru Payu Swim to offer a drowning prevention and water safety course to local school children. We have modified a water safety program developed in Australia and have plans to use the Rotary network to train water safety instructors in Chiang Mai first and then nationally (teach the teacher). We are in the pilot testing stages, but have already completed Three 10-hour courses of instruction for a total of about 100 students. It works! The big problem is most children do not have bathing suits, googles, swim caps, access to a pool, money to pay an instructor. We estimate we can provide 10 hours of instruction and all the equipment needed, the pool, and instructors for about 500 Baht per kid.

In addition to the lessons in the pool, we have developed a YouTube 12-lesson set of instructional films, we will be posting these via Kru Payu Swim soon.

Contact me if you want to get involved or have ideas: [email protected].

The idea is great and worthwhile peruing BUT 500b is a heck of a lot to an issan villager , if they wont invest in a kids crash helmet@200baht i cant see them dishing out 500 for swimming lessons , some will , but imo its too much for the majority , the onus should be on the schools anyway .

A child can drown in three inches of water indeed anyone can , so drowning prevention isn't only confined to dog paddle in the backyard pool , rivers . bath tubs, water holes , paddy fields , anything that can contain water , Oz summer has now almost passed and daily over summer, government adds by personalities point out the dangers of more than 3 inches of water. ..................................................

.....they go in the water in cotton T shirts and Denim jeans to stop getting sun burn.... the strain and weight of wet cloths in the water drags them under.......

I am not sure that you intended to make this point but, if you did, it is a good one. After acquiring the basic swimming skills we should all develop the ability of swimming in the clothing and with the equipment that we will habitually wear or carry. This should be taught and practiced in safety during training.

Great thread. Almost entirely positive.

In memory of little Noon.

A child can drown in three inches of water indeed anyone can , so drowning prevention isn't only confined to dog paddle in the backyard pool , rivers . bath tubs, water holes , paddy fields , anything that can contain water , Oz summer has now almost passed and daily over summer, government adds by personalities point out the dangers of more than 3 inches of water. ..................................................

Two inches actually

Coach loads of school children arriving here daily in Jomtien.

They are disgorged into the new safe bathing areas by their teachers, and left to splash about for a few hours.

What an ideal opportunity to employ some swimming instructors to get them started.

I would suspect their teachers cannot swim, and much prefer to stay in the shade and sample the local seafood

I live in a condo with a handful of Chinese, all of their children can swim. The Thai kids just run around the outside of the pool. Some of them even ride skateboards and skate shoes right next to the water. Stupid is as stupid does.

The Chiang Mai International Rotary Club in Chiang Mai is working with Kru Payu Swim to offer a drowning prevention and water safety course to local school children. We have modified a water safety program developed in Australia and have plans to use the Rotary network to train water safety instructors in Chiang Mai first and then nationally (teach the teacher). We are in the pilot testing stages, but have already completed Three 10-hour courses of instruction for a total of about 100 students. It works! The big problem is most children do not have bathing suits, googles, swim caps, access to a pool, money to pay an instructor. We estimate we can provide 10 hours of instruction and all the equipment needed, the pool, and instructors for about 500 Baht per kid.

In addition to the lessons in the pool, we have developed a YouTube 12-lesson set of instructional films, we will be posting these via Kru Payu Swim soon.

Contact me if you want to get involved or have ideas: [email protected].

The idea is great and worthwhile peruing BUT 500b is a heck of a lot to an issan villager , if they wont invest in a kids crash helmet@200baht i cant see them dishing out 500 for swimming lessons , some will , but imo its too much for the majority , the onus should be on the schools anyway .

We are not charging the children or their families for the survival swimming lessons. The Chiang Mai International Rotary Club is sponsoring the program, so there is no charge to the student. I totally agree, 500 Baht is a lot of money for many families here in Thailand. What we want to do is get insurance companies, schools, government agencies, etc. involved to address this problem. Our program works and we want to use the Rotary network and schools and government agencies to fund it regionally first and eventually nationwide.

The Chiang Mai International Rotary Club in Chiang Mai is working with Kru Payu Swim to offer a drowning prevention and water safety course to local school children. We have modified a water safety program developed in Australia and have plans to use the Rotary network to train water safety instructors in Chiang Mai first and then nationally (teach the teacher). We are in the pilot testing stages, but have already completed Three 10-hour courses of instruction for a total of about 100 students. It works! The big problem is most children do not have bathing suits, googles, swim caps, access to a pool, money to pay an instructor. We estimate we can provide 10 hours of instruction and all the equipment needed, the pool, and instructors for about 500 Baht per kid.

In addition to the lessons in the pool, we have developed a YouTube 12-lesson set of instructional films, we will be posting these via Kru Payu Swim soon.

Contact me if you want to get involved or have ideas: [email protected].

The idea is great and worthwhile peruing BUT 500b is a heck of a lot to an issan villager , if they wont invest in a kids crash helmet@200baht i cant see them dishing out 500 for swimming lessons , some will , but imo its too much for the majority , the onus should be on the schools anyway .

We are not charging the children or their families for the survival swimming lessons. The Chiang Mai International Rotary Club is sponsoring the program, so there is no charge to the student. I totally agree, 500 Baht is a lot of money for many families here in Thailand. What we want to do is get insurance companies, schools, government agencies, etc. involved to address this problem. Our program works and we want to use the Rotary network and schools and government agencies to fund it regionally first and eventually nationwide.

Nice sentiments but this is the land of clowns and stupidity so will fall on deaf ears.

They should always have an adult who is a strong swimmer present. Unfortunately many families let their children go out and do what they want without supervision. Education in this has to start with the family

round here i think kids are an accidental consequence of sex , parenting skills are non existant or = tv or phone, now run along whilst Mummy Daddy have a nap or eat anything but acually physically interact with their kids.......................or Granny has them and she's no better, give them some sugary crap to eat etc

The Chiang Mai International Rotary Club in Chiang Mai is working with Kru Payu Swim to offer a drowning prevention and water safety course to local school children. We have modified a water safety program developed in Australia and have plans to use the Rotary network to train water safety instructors in Chiang Mai first and then nationally (teach the teacher). We are in the pilot testing stages, but have already completed Three 10-hour courses of instruction for a total of about 100 students. It works! The big problem is most children do not have bathing suits, googles, swim caps, access to a pool, money to pay an instructor. We estimate we can provide 10 hours of instruction and all the equipment needed, the pool, and instructors for about 500 Baht per kid.

In addition to the lessons in the pool, we have developed a YouTube 12-lesson set of instructional films, we will be posting these via Kru Payu Swim soon.

Contact me if you want to get involved or have ideas: [email protected].

The idea is great and worthwhile peruing BUT 500b is a heck of a lot to an issan villager , if they wont invest in a kids crash helmet@200baht i cant see them dishing out 500 for swimming lessons , some will , but imo its too much for the majority , the onus should be on the schools anyway .

be all those villagers have a phone though