Volunteers deliver anti-drowning lessons in Vanuatu

A new pilot project in Vanuatu is teaching children valuable lifesaving and swimming skills for the very first time, in a bid to prevent the high number of drownings in the island nation.

While no records kept on just how many drownings occur each year in Vanuatu, estimates suggest that water-related deaths make up as much as 40% of all accidental deaths.

As in many emerging nations, children make up a large proportion of these water-related deaths. While Vanuatu is a nation of 83 islands surrounded by water, water safety and swimming skills aren’t taught to children – something a group of Australian volunteers have sought to address.

Anika Wright, a volunteer surf lifesaver in Townsville spent time in Vanuatu with her father, Ian Wright, who is also a volunteer lifesaver three years ago, producing a report on the situation.

However, as Anika Wright told the ABC, little has changed, "hospitals don't have records of the causes of deaths.

"The office for Birth, Deaths and Marriages doesn't either. They just don't get listed because a lot of ni-Vanuatu people see drowning and water-based deaths as black magic, so they don't report them".

Bella Anis, a mother of four from Mele village, just a few kilometres outside the capital Port Vila, told the ABC that drownings are a common occurrence within the community.

Anis explained "there are children who have died, they've drowned because they aren't able to swim.”

Contributing to the drowning is boat travel - an essential part of life in Vanuatu,  where many people travel over water daily - to visit other villages, tend to gardens or go to school on neighbouring islands.

But they do so at their own risk - many of the small fishing boats don't even carry lifejackets, and those that do are rarely used.

The ABC reports that there is no known formal strategy to promote water nationally in Vanuatu, but now a three-month trial is offering structured swimming classes for children.

American expat and certified swim instructor Nancy Miyake's is behind a trial that's collaborating with the local school in Mele village and a youth centre.

They're learning how they could possibly keep themselves afloat if they're in deep water or if they were ever in a situation where they had to implement lifesaving skills.

Miyake explain "it's the first program aimed at ni-Vanuatu. All the lessons are in Bislama, they're done with local materials, what can we get here.

Children are attending classes twice a week, learning the basic strokes as well as floating techniques.

Miyake says it's about giving them more confidence in the water, adding "a lot of them don't want to go very deep or if they do go deep, they don't know how to save themselves so you see a lot of kids grabbing on to each other.

"They spend almost every weekend down at the beach, I think it's really fun for them, they're keeping fit, they're learning how they could possibly keep themselves afloat if they're in deep water or if they were ever in a situation where they had to implement lifesaving skills of some sort".

While the project is already running on a shoe-string budget and only has enough funding for three months, Nancy Miyake has big dreams to take it much further.

"It's really small now but we're hoping it grows into not just more classes but also get enough people interested that they want to train up to become teachers or coaches or swim clubs."

"We definitely want it to become a national thing but Port Vila is the first step and then we'll go from there".

In 2008, a report, spearheaded by UNICEF and The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC), found that drowning is the biggest killer of children in Asia, with drowning rates up to 20 times higher than those in western countries.

Click here to read the original ABC report on the Vanuatu initiative.

29th October 2011 - ASIAN FLOODS EXPOSE CHILD DROWNING 'EPIDEMIC'

10th September 2009 - AUSTRALIAN LIFESAVERS TO AID JAPAN

2nd April 2008 - DROWNING BIGGEST KILLER OF ASIAN CHILDREN