A swimming charity is urging people to take care in the water ss schools break up for the summer.
SwimTayka is sending the message to tie in with World Drowning Prevention Day on 25 July.
The Wiltshire charity runs swimming programmes around the world, in locations where children have little or no access to swimming lessons, and so are at risk of drowning.
With this year’s World Drowning Prevention Day message being ‘Anyone can drown, no one should’, SwimTayka is urging people to take care in the water during the summer.
In 2022, there were 226 accidental drowning fatalities in the UK in 2022, almost half of which occurred during summer months.
Bryan Avery, SwimTayka’s founder, said the combination of warm weather and the summer holidays meant more people swimming, and increased the risk of drowning incidents.
“Swimming on a hot day is very tempting, and with children off school there is plenty of opportunity, but we would urge everyone to swim only in safe locations, like pools or beaches where there are lifeguards,” he added.
“Swimming is a fantastic activity and an essential life skill, but even able swimmers can get into difficulties.”
World Drowning Prevention Day, backed by the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO), started in 2021, with the goal of drawing attention to the scale and preventability of drowning worldwide.
The charity says drowning has caused more than 2.5m preventable deaths in the past decade. An estimated 235,600 people died from drowning in 2019 – the equivalent of 650 deaths every day.
Drowning is among the 10 leading causes of death for children and young people.
The World Health Organisation has identified a number of measures to help prevent drowning, including teaching basic swimming, water safety and safe rescue skills to schoolchildren.
SwimTayka, founded six years ago, runs free swimming programmes in countries including Peru, Brazil and Mozambique, in waterside locations where drowning presents a real risk.
Programmes are supported by trained staff and volunteers, many from the UK, who give up their time to help teach swimming.
For more information about SwimTayka and volunteering opportunities, people can visit https://swimtayka.org/
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