The announcement to parents provoked raised eyebrows and head shakes: At the Boys & Girls Club in Roxbury, Andrea Swain declared, all children would take swim lessons.
“You could feel the fear in the room,” said Swain, executive director of the organization’s Yawkey Club on Warren Street. “It’s amazing that in 2012, you would have to convince parents to give their children free lessons.”
Comments
Like
This is fantastic!
This comment has been removed.
Kudos to the Boys and Girls Club of Boston. Hopefully other clubs in Massachusetts will follow suit.
This is a great idea. I wish that there were pools and programs avalable when I was that age many, many years ago. In those dyas you went to the docks and either someone threw you in or you closed your eyes and jumped. I avoided both and can't swim to this day.
Very interesting socioeconomic factor demonstrated in this article with the parental dissent to teach their children how to swim: Many parents have been attending the Y (& other organizations) with their babies and toddlers for at least the past 30+ years to ensure their children learned how to stay afloat and the task of swimming. It had less to do with money and immigration status,than the connection between drowning versus learning how to swim or float.
Great Article! I'm glad to see this topic is getting some attention. The Boston Elite Swim Team (BEST) has been leading the charge to reduce drowning rates in underserved communities for years. It is about "access and education" their founder Nadine Jesionek says, who is also the Diversity Chair for New England Swimming. BEST focuses as well on training children to swim competitively. So it's safety, fun and competition in the water. For more information check out tonight on "The Empowerment Zone" the 4 C's of swimming. It will be on the public access channel 23 or RCN 15 or 83 from 7-8pm. www.bnntv.org