Last year at the European Aquatics Championships in London, LEN, in association with the European Life-Saving Federation and Swim England, began to work on a new project \u201cGetting Europe Swimming Safely.\u201d After busy months of research and discussions, the steering group shaped the project which were ready to be launched.<\/p>\n
At a press conference held in the Royal Arena Copenhagen, LEN President Paolo<\/strong> Barelli<\/strong>, with Danish Swimming Federation CEO Pia Holmen<\/strong> and Jon Glenn<\/strong> from Swim England presented the details of the initiative.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to understand that our sport is different from the others. If you can swim, you can save your own life and maybe others\u2019 one too,\u201d President Barelli said. \u201cHere we are not talking about top level athletes, in this program we are not preparing them to swim on high level. Instead, we have to take care of the little children. This is a project we have to build together with our national federations as we have to take care of not only medals, Olympic Games, records but also the health of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n The LEN President claimed that those working in the project have to discover the ways to get more inside the society, \u201cand also have to learn how to enter into the heart of our governments. The power in our hand is very strong as we have stars who can raise awareness and we have experienced and educated people who can teach thousands of youngsters. And we have to use this type of power to open the doors of ministers of sports, education or construction. We can achieve huge results thanks to this project.\u201d<\/p>\n Danish Swimming Federation CEO Pia Holmen, also member of the steering group, shared some facts on the on-going projects in Denmark where swimming is among the most popular sport activities. With a coastline of almost 8500km, people considers swimming a fundamental skill \u2013 but a lot of clubs have long waiting lists for their courses, still, the statistics on the young ones\u2019 swimming skills are worrying. \u201cOur local project focuses on the development and implementation and evaluation of innovative models of school swimming education that promotes efficient learning of basic swimming skills and water competencies.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Europe is not the worst effected continent by drowning, still, four people die in the waters in every hour as 35,000 humans lost their lives annually. Drowning is among the 10 leading causes of death in the world and in the top five among children aged under 15. \u201cWay too many lives lost,\u201d said Detlev<\/strong> Mohr<\/strong>, ILS Europe President in his video message (this institution, the International Life-Saving Federation also plays a pivotal role in the new project).<\/p>\n Jon Glenn from Swim England shared a terrible statistics on the British youth: despite swimming being a compulsory subject in the schools, 45% of children under 11 cannot swim 25 meters.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been setting these European standards to have young people and adults in safe in the water,\u201d Mr. Glenn said. \u201cWe were glad to hear some politicians saying that teaching children swimming was a human right. We have to keep on lobbying governments to make swimming compulsory, part of the curriculum.\u201d<\/p>\n Kelvin<\/strong> Juba<\/strong>, member of the steering group explained that they made a wide research across the continent as they wished to establish standards for teaching and learning swimming and also to introduce the LEN Blue Card, a certificate on swimming skills. \u201cWe hope to do something good for not only saving lives but to get people swimming properly.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the standards, LEN recommends that all children will have tried to enrole in a learn-to-swim program at least by the age of 8 years and after completing a course they should be able to swim at least 200 meters in warm water. Standards are also set for facilities, teachers and lifeguards.<\/p>\n The LEN Blue Card is designed for both pool users and those operating swimming pools, as managers will be enabled to determine which areas a \u2018bather\u2019 should be using, thereby helping with health and safety.<\/p>\n World and European champion Danish swimmer Lotte Friis<\/strong> recalled a memory from her childhood when her sister almost drowned in the pool in her family\u2019s backyard. \u201cAfter that my parents were determined that we should master the water and have safe and great experiences in it.\u201d As the former athlete explained, \u201cwater can be a fierce element, that\u2019s why it\u2019s important for me that children learn to respect water and learn the skill of swimming. I love to see children feeling safe while being in the water, playing and splashing.\u201d<\/p>\n In the coming month, LEN will organise a meeting involving the presidents of all National Federations to consult on the details on the program and to discuss the future steps with the responsible officials of the European Union.<\/p>\n Press release courtesy of LEN.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last year at the European Aquatics Championships in London, LEN, in association with the European Life-Saving Federation and Swim England, began to work on a new project \u201cGetting Europe Swimming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":288369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[65152],"class_list":["post-288368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-world","tag-2017-european-sc-championships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n