Drowning Prevention Week (14-24 June)

To coincide with Drowning Prevention Week on June 14, The Sreepur Village, Bangladesh would like to highlight the importance of its #SwimSafe Campaign this summer. 

As temperatures rise, so do the temptations for jumping into ponds or rivers, but what if you can't swim? or worse still in Bangladesh from June to October it is rainy season where approximately 80% of Bangladesh's yearly rain will fall and will flood and damage anything that comes in its way, including those thousands of children who cannot swim.

Every year around 18,000 Bangladeshi children under the age of 17 die from drowning in ponds, rivers and other bodies of water that make up this low-lying country. This translates to a child dying every half an hour – 46 every day – thought to be one of the highest rates of child drowning anywhere in the world.

With the help of CIPRB (Centre for Injury Prevention and Research Bangladesh) and one of our volunteers and long-distance swimmers, Becky Horsbrugh, The Sreepur Village set up two years ago SwimSafe, a programme which is aimed at reducing the number of deaths by drowning by providing lessons in their pond which has been structured accordingly.

Since the SwimSafe programme began, The Sreepur Village has provided swimming lessons to approx. 288 children aged between six and twelve living at the Sreepur Village, and 30 children living in the local community. The aim of the SwimSafe programme is for every child to be able to swim 25 meters, float or tread water for 30 seconds and perform a dry land rescue.

Knowing that these 318 children will one day return to their communities, flood-stricken areas, and be able to survive the dangers that their country's climate can cause is the reason our Summer Swim-Safe campaign needs you!

This July, we plan to teach 80 children on how to swim and survive.  To teach this many children to swim per year costs the charity £400 that's just over £1 per day.  If you would like to set up a direct debit or send a one-off donation and help us to save more lives, then  please click here