Page 2957 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 12 October 2022
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governments and Royal Life Saving Australia in delivering school swimming lessons and community water safety messages, as well as the proximity of a beach, river or municipal or backyard pool where kids can learn and practise how to swim.
When I talk about summer swimming, the picture in your head is probably of a bunch of those active kids smeared in sunscreen and squinting against the bright sun, maybe with a few surfers or sunbathers in the background. But there are an awful lot of people left out of this picture—people who are not able to enjoy our water-orientated pastimes safely, or at all. I am talking about people with disabilities or body confidence issues; migrants and tourists who came to this country as adults from parts of the world where learning to swim was not an automatic thing; recent migrants who can swim but have not been here long enough to absorb the messaging about Australia’s swimming hazards—messaging that is designed to keep them safe on our rock shelves or in our oceans, rivers or lakes; people from cultures where men and women will not swim at all if they have to swim together, due to cultural or religious beliefs; and people who are gender-diverse and have concerns about their safety and privacy at the pool.
It is a lot to miss out on for these people. Firstly, being able to swim makes you safer. Every six days a person who was born overseas dies by drowning in Australia. Deaths by drowning are preventable if people have access to appropriate swimming and water safety lessons. While swimming programs for children exist in the schools, Canberra has long been the only capital city in Australia without a specialist swimming program for adults from refugee and migrant backgrounds. I applaud the work of the Refugee and Migrant Swimming Project. Annie Gao, Clare McBride Kelly, Andrew Nolan and Liam McBride Kelly lost a mutual friend from the refugee community when he tragically drowned in 2020 at a freshwater site in Canberra. In honour of their friend, the group has created the Refugee and Migrant Swimming Project, a not-for-profit initiative to teach water safety and swimming skills to Canberra’s growing refugee and migrant community.
Secondly, swimming provides many physical and mental health benefits. Physically, swimming builds endurance, strengthens muscles and improves cardiovascular fitness, while avoiding the impact and stresses to the body that arise from activities such as running. Swimming aids lung function for asthmatics, helps to counteract the ageing process and can reduce pain and improve recovery from injury. A 2012 study done in Spain found that a 20-week swimming program resulted in significant reduction of pain for people with multiple sclerosis, while hydrotherapy for the elderly has been found to improve balance, motor and cognitive tasks, coordination and aerobic capacity.
Ocean swimming has been shown to boost dopamine and serotonin, benefit skin health and relieve seasonal allergies. Whether you swim in an ocean, an Olympic swim centre or a backyard pool, swimming can lower stress, improve mood, enhance self-esteem, fight depression and improve sleep. A British study found that swimming helped reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. There are also social benefits from group swimming. It may be playing a game of Marco Polo with the kids, heading out to the Cotter River with a group of friends, or having a family day down at the beach. All these activities help break down barriers and bring people together. They bring people out of isolation and build and maintain bonds with friends, loved ones and family.
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