LEARN TO SWIM PROGRAMME VITAL
HARDLY had the death of seven children in two drowning tragedies in the Klang Valley in late November sunk in our conscience, the nation was again jolted by another horror when five members of a family drowned during a picnic at a waterfall in Terengganu last Saturday.
All the incidents tugged at our hearts for the frequency and sheer number of victims especially involving children.
But is our society so helpless to do anything about it, just allowing children into the water?
Statistics show that at least 500 children drowned annually in our lakes, rivers and disused mining pools and it’s the tip of the iceberg if drownings involving adults and unreported cases are taken into account.
In the first of the two incidents within a few days of each other in November, four children drowned after jumping into a lake in Kelana Jaya just to recover a slipper belonging to one of them.
And a few days later, three children who went swimming and fishing in a small river near the army camp at Sungai Besi lost their lives when the water level suddenly rose after a downpour.
The heart-rending waterfall tragedy in Terengganu claimed the lives of three girls and their parents. The nine-year-old son survived.
Children are naturally attracted to water and many will jump into a pool to play without any thought for their safety. There is always the risk of drowning unless children are taught basic water survival skills.
Almost weekly we read of primary schoolchildren returning home from school or tuition classes playing in water and drowning.
Young children don’t know the dangers of water because they have not been taught water survival skills. Also, many children travel to and from school by boats and there have been many cases of such drownings especially in the riverine states like Sabah, Sarawak and Pahang.
It’s hard to imagine the trauma caused to the loved ones of these victims but this latest spate of drownings has left the country’s foremost sports administrator, Datuk Sieh Kok Chi, “truly devastated”.
Having been in sports administration for over 30 years with 23 years as secretarygeneral of the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM), the umbrella body for sports associations, Sieh told me he had raised many times to former ministers of youth and sports to initiate plans to build small swimming pools throughout the country, especially in the rural areas, for under-privileged children to learn the survival skills of swimming and saving themselves, their relatives and friends.
“All my attempts to raise this awareness unfortunately have come to no avail. I just don’t understand their reasons for not having such plans. If they are worried about the maintenance cost, such pools can be leased to some operators under the ministry’s Rakan Muda scheme to allow some youth to be selfemployed,” said Sieh, who stepped down as OCM secretary-general recently.
He cited the case of a friend in Malacca who privately constructed two small pools, about 15m by 10m in two housing estates to teach swimming and who could earn a decent RM3,000 monthly from each pool.
Increasing the number of such pools could also eventually broaden the pool of potential national swimmers which Malaysia is lacking due to the dearth of swimming facilities.
Swimming is a basic skill which all young Malaysians from eight to 12 years old should have.
“There are far too many Malaysian children drowning and these youngsters do not deserve to die. Malaysia is surrounded by water, rivers, lakes, pools, seas and oceans. We also have regular floods and poor drainage resulting in temporary pools of water being formed,” said Sieh, a former engineer with the Department of Irrigation and Drainage.
As he put it: “I really cannot understand the reason for Malaysians in general and the government, such as the ministries of education and youth and sports to be so relaxed over such a life and death issue.”
In Singapore, the government introduced the slogan “Learn to swim and save a life”. This could be one reason for Singapore to be so strong in swimming.
I don’t know if it’s a knee-jerk reaction, but following the latest waterfall tragedy, a minister said this week that the Cabinet would decide on the proposal for a Water Safety Council next month based on discussions with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and the Life Saving Society of Malaysia. Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan said in general the relevant ministries and departments were supportive of the establishment of a Water Safety Council to coordinate programmes and activities and relevant information on water safety awareness and early warning systems.
It will serve as a regular platform for the relevant government agencies as well as private sector organisations and NGOs to discuss matters concerning water safety issues be it recreational, sports, transport, occupational or in the home.
Sieh is not giving up, though. He said he would also be writing to Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to establish mini-swimming pools in rural areas.
He is confident that if the minister does so, he will be able to see his legacy in five years with the reduction in drowning cases and in 10 years time when a new breed of national swimmers emerge from the rural areas.