Taking a lesson from the increasing incidents of drowning of students in the state, the Sports Directorate has decided to extend the ‘Swim N Survive’ project to five selected districts in the state.
The novel project, the pilot edition of which was launched almost three months back at Kottayam MD Seminary Higher Secondary School, will now be extended to Malappuram, Kozhikode, Ernakulam, Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts. Under this project, the students of selected schools will be trained on life-saving swimming techniques using portable swimming pools made of Vinyl.
The officials of the Sports Directorate said that they had proposed such a project to the Education Department and it was likely to be implemented before July end.
“We have proposed two schools from each district to the Education Department which, in turn, would select one. Our focus is on imparting training on life-saving swimming techniques to the students. Besides, they will also be given basic inputs on first aid and rescue operations. As of now, we have decided to take students from Classes V to IX for the course. All the students in these classes would be trained in swimming,’’ said S Najumudeen, assistant director of the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs.
The project has been initiated by the Sports Directorate in collaboration with the Rashtriya Life Saving Society (RLSS), a Pune-based NGO engaged in providing training in first aid and rescue measures during contingency. The portable pool with a length of 18 metre and a width of 10 metre can be erected instantaneously in school compounds.
The pool will be supplemented by change room, shower room and water filtering facility. A single pool is expected to cost around Rs 20 lakh.
But the mainstay of the project is something else. Talented students will be hand picked from the schools and they would be awarded a certificate, which makes them eligible to train other students. Those ‘expert students’ will get a fixed amount as honorarium.