Children have fun learning water safety and swimming

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enarada

Mangalore, April 19, 2013;

Photos and text by C D Souza

Swimming is a life skill, which children should learn because this is the one sport that can be a true life saver. Very often we hear young lives being lost to drowning and this is common in the coastal districts of Mangalore and Udupi.

Since swimming is something that a child will hold on for entirety learning swimming must be made mandatory for school children.  In the absence of such a system in India, parents   take efforts to equip their children with swimming skills and summer holidays is the best time to make their children learn swimming and also beat the summer heat by splashing pool water.

This is what Mangaloreans have been doing every year.  During summer holidays Mangalore City Corporation organizes swimming coaching for children at the Corporation swimming pool at Lady Hill. Parents and children make the best use of the coaching and hundreds of children of varied age groups flock to the pool both in the morning and evening.  There will be two batches of one month duration each and hundreds of students learn to swim during this special coaching camp.

The pool has started swimming coaching from April 2, 2013 which will continue up to May end 2013.  There are three batches of 45 minutes each starting from 7.30 to 10.30am.  In the evening there are two batches mainly for ladies where children are also given coaching.  The pool management has assigned coaching to expert swimmers and also to the coaches of the two clubs of the competition batch.

Ramakrishna Rao, head coach of Jai Hind Swim Club who has trained many national and international level swimmers says “during summer vacation on an average about 1000 people come to the pool for swimming. In addition to learning swimming it is one of the ways to beat summer heat.  It is good to know that parents are realizing the importance of teaching swimming to their children which has picked up over the years”.

It goes to the credit of the employees of the pool that they have been able to maintain cleanliness at the pool, unlike corporation maintained pools elsewhere. Pramila Shenoy, who brings her children for swimming coaching, says “my children are really enjoying their swimming coaching classes and I am happy that they are learning this life saving skill.  I am also happy that they will be using their summer holidays learning swimming which will help them throughout their lives”.

The footfall at the Corporation pool has been increasing every year and there overcrowding at the pool during the summer coaching. But sadly, despite the city making rapid progress in all spheres,   this is the only pool the city is boasting about.  Mangalore City Corporation Commissioner has given assurances that the Corporation has plans to come up with a swimming pool and it is believed that the corporation is scouting for a suitable place to come up with a new swimming pool.

Hope it becomes a reality soon so that more and more children will be able to learn swimming.

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