Training children to swim

Swimming is an essential life skill. Everyone should learn and practise it. It is beneficial for your metabolism and the cardiovascular system. Besides, this skill helps you survive in water. Although largely unrecognised, drowning is the second leading cause of death for children under the age of five in Bangladesh. Each year, over 19,000 people in the country reportedly die from drowning. Of them, approximately 77 per cent are children below 18. The World Health Organization (WHO) points out that drowning is one of the world's most preventable, yet neglected public health issues. Despite this fact, most of us are still reluctant to learn swimming.
The places where one can learn swimming is also decreasing day by day in Bangladesh. The scope for learning swimming is limited in urban areas of the country. If many oragnaisations and people of the country come forward and help children and adults learn swimming, it will be a noble initiative. In a welcome move, Bangladesh Shishu Academy recently published an advertisement of introducing swimming training to children. It is a laudable step that the academy will organise swimming training on its head office premises in Dhaka city from July 25 for children between 6 and 10 years of age. The training will be held in portable swimming pool, with separate arrangement for boys and girls. Following the academy, other organisations should step forward and make our children learn and practise swimming as a social movement. In this way, we can definitely save many lives from drowning.

MA Islam,
Dhanmondi, Dhaka,
asheqbd@gmail.com