Asylum agency providing safe swimming info as drownings increase

Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has said that they are providing a lot of education about safe swimming. Yet the worry about the dangers of water for asylum seekers who cannot swim is still there, said a spokesperson in response to numbers provided by Statistics Netherlands. This shows, among other things, that over the past ten years, there have been significantly more drownings among young children of migrants.

Children up to the age of 10 who were born in a country outside Europe drowned nine times more often than children of Dutch origin.

The COA is aware that newcomers in the Netherlands are relatively more likely to drown than Dutch people. Children in asylum centers also usually do not have many swimming diplomas or sometimes do not have any at all.

The organization encourages residents to take swimming lessons, and contributes to the costs. Asylum seekers receive information about swimming safety as soon as they receive shelter.

"We are always concerned about this," said the spokesperson. "This is why we are working with other parties to provide the best education possible. Videos have been made, and posters are hanging on the walls at the locations." He claimed that the water is still attractive to the inhabitants of the asylum seeker centers, and they are not always aware of the dangers.

Previously, COA and the Nationale Raad Zwemveiligheid, which is the National Swimming Safety Council in English, drew up the 'National Swimming Safety Action Plan for Asylum Seekers 2020-2021'. A sequel to this is now being discussed.

The rescue brigade has also agreed that more education and swimming lessons should be given to children with a migrant background. According to the Rescue Brigade, this often concerns people who come from a culture in which swimming is less self-evident than in the Netherlands. "With this, you are talking about people with a migration background, tourists, or people from Eastern Europe who live here. The underlying reason is that if your parents did not learn swimming from home, it is also less logical for you to take swimming lessons and obtain diplomas or swimming skills."

This means that children are already "1-0 behind" when it comes to swimming safely, says the Rescue Brigade. They are often less able to assess dangers in the water. "If you are standing in the water and, for example, you step into a hole, or a wave comes and you go under, then you are potentially already in danger. And sometimes peer pressure also plays a role; one person has the courage and the other does not."

As far as the rescue service is concerned, the easiest way for children to learn to swim is through primary school, but not all schools still offer school swimming, and private swimming lessons are often expensive. According to the spokesperson, many municipalities have schemes and subsidies to support families with less money for swimming lessons, but many parents are unaware of this. "There are also gains to be made by creating more awareness