Giving children a "lifeline"

The Provincial Youth Activities Center recently organized the 2025 Open Swimming Competition for Youth, attracting nearly 100 young athletes from various localities, schools, and swimming clubs in the province. This activity contributes to helping children improve their swimming skills and ability to handle situations in the water.

More than just a sporting event, the swimming competition carries a clear and consistent message: equipping children with swimming skills is like giving them a "safety net" in life.

Learning to swim safely helps children improve their physical fitness and protect themselves in dangerous situations.

Huynh Ngoc Huyen My, a 5th-grade student at Nguyen Huu Duat Primary School (Hoa Hiep Ward), shared: “My biggest goal in learning to swim is to improve my health and prevent drowning. During the recent floods, the water was very deep, and knowing how to swim helped me escape danger.”

For Truong Bao Hoai Ny, a 6th-grade student at Nguyen Chi Thanh Secondary School (Dong Hoa Ward), swimming is not just a personal skill but also a responsibility to the community. “Knowing how to swim not only helps me but also allows me to help others when needed. Before, I was very afraid of water, but after learning to swim, I know how to breathe, float, and swim safely,” Hoai Ny said.

From a parent's perspective, Mr. Nguyen Van Tan (Dong Hoa ward) said: "My family enrolled our child in swimming lessons because the risk of drowning is still high, especially in rural areas and along rivers and streams. Swimming competitions like this not only motivate the children but also help parents become more aware of their responsibilities."

Currently, drowning is one of the leading causes of death among children. Given this reality, promoting safe swimming and improving water safety skills for young people has been identified as a key task for all levels of government, sectors, and youth organizations. The 2025 Swimming Competition is a concrete action to ensure that the message "learn to swim to protect yourself" deeply permeates the awareness of every child, every family, and the entire society.

Children participating in the amateur swimming competition have the opportunity to socialize with friends and become more confident in life.

Throughout the competition, many young athletes demonstrated quite good swimming techniques and the ability to handle underwater situations flexibly and calmly. This is clear evidence of the initial effectiveness of the campaign to promote and organize swimming lessons and disseminate drowning prevention skills to children in localities throughout the province.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy Hien, Deputy Director in charge of the Provincial Youth Activities Center and Head of the Organizing Committee of the competition, in the context of many localities in the province having just experienced a historic flood, the significance of the amateur swimming competition has become even clearer and more practical.

"The recent floods have shown that children in low-lying areas, along rivers and streams, and in areas frequently affected by flooding are the most vulnerable group. Organizing this competition not only creates a healthy playground, but more importantly, it helps children, especially those in flood-affected areas, to acquire basic survival skills to protect themselves in emergency situations," Ms. Hien emphasized.

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/xa-hoi/202512/trao-chiec-phao-an-toan-cho-tre-em-19e15fd/