2020, What a Year!

Due to COVID19, SWIM Cambodia has been unable to deliver any face-to-face interventions since Cambodia closed all schools in March. Cambodia has been spared the worst pandemic affects with only 364 cases and no deaths reported. What is unknown, is the impact of closed schools on child drowning. Whilst closing schools may have been successful in stopping the spread of the corona virus, we know that schools act as a protective factor in keeping children safe from drowning. Schools prevent all types of injury as well as allowing parents and carers the opportunity to work and provide for their family. COVID19 has had such a big impact on many of our lives, but we fear that floods and lock-down measures this year may have increased inequality in Cambodia.

We have spent time this year in meetings with our volunteer trainers, teachers and trustees. We have reviewed our strategy, made plans, discussed new proposal projects, compiled survey data from the last two years and kept in touch whenever we have had good WiFi. The trustees have been working on strategic plans towards national registration in Cambodia to build partnerships for integration into the public school system. One of our delivery partners, Helpcode, adapted well to the pandemic, filming and posting water safety messages online. See below, Harry Lao giving advice on spotting drowning dangers and knowing water and weather conditions before getting into water.

Good news for 2021! We need it!

It has just been announced that schools in Cambodia will reopen from 11th January 2021 to start the new academic year. This means that our delivery partners will be able to return to important delivery of water safety education. We are looking forward to getting back to teaching children and caregivers and meeting face-to-face as we hope to say goodbye to COVID19.

Thank you to all of you who have supported our work. If you would like to support our work to go further, you can donate at this link:

*RNLI et al. Aquatic Survival Programme Catch-up and strategy meetings with SWIM Cambodia trainers and advisors 3. Illustration by Sao Sreymao www.saosreymao.com 4. Children enjoy copying water safety messages.

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