The Flowers family’s love of the sea is well-known, as they have hosted the Cayman Islands’ signature swimming event, the Flowers Sea Swim, for over three decades. Now, they are taking their passion for the ocean to local schools through an innovative initiative.
The family has launched the appropriately named Swim Free programme to teach local primary school students to swim without their parents having to bear the burden of paying for lessons.
And they will even bring the pool to the students, as the programme is using a custom-built mobile swimming pool that will be transported from school to school.
Filmmaker Frank E. Flowers Jr., who is spearheading the initiative, told the Cayman Compass via Zoom that Swim Free is “very near and dear to my heart” and has been in the works for some time.
“Caymanian culture is a seafaring culture,” he said. “Caymanian culture is the water, and sort of using that to re-energise some of the conversations that my dad [Frank Sr.] had been having, that [former Cayman Islands National Coach Dave Kelsheimer] had been having. We crystallised this agenda of ‘what if we pushed for every single Caymanian child to learn to swim, not as a privilege, but as a right, as their entitlement?'”
Fostering a love of the ocean
Flowers, who is based in Los Angeles, said having seen his daughter grow to love the sea while spending time in Cayman during the pandemic got him thinking about local children nurturing that same love of the water.
“How can a child have a real relationship with a coral reef or an anchor dragging across a coral reef, if they’ve never seen it?” he asked. “If they’ve never seen the beauty of a fish underwater? If they’ve never been able to put their toe in Seven Mile Beach?… How can we actually have an organic relationship? How can we talk about seafarers and the amazing cultural connection that Caymanians have had to the sea for over a hundred years if you’re afraid of the sea?”
With this in mind, Flowers said his father and the team set out to build the Swim Free programme curriculum and its mobile pool, and to turn the dream of every child having access to learning to swim into a reality.
“This would not have happened without my father. He not only had the vision but also put his heart and soul into this, supervised the construction on a day-to-day basis over the past six months, along with the team at the Flowers compound and Sire heavy equipment,” Flowers said.
Flowers said, apart from creating access to resources, the programme is going to ensure water safety is ingrained in local students and helps prevent drownings.
“Whether you’re a kid in East End, West Bay, George Town, if you meet up at the beach, what if you were all trained in the same curriculum? That language now starts to come together. We all respect the sea. We all learned about the sea, we all learned about swimming in the same way,” he said.
He said the mobile pool was constructed in the Cayman Islands by local engineers and welders, using an ordinary shipping container that was converted into the prototype used for the programme.
Actor Sung Kang from the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise was on hand for the private launch of the programme, which coincided with the 31st annual Flowers Sea Swim last month.
Kang shared his personal story about nearly drowning as a child and spending months in the hospital recovering from that life-changing event, and how learning to swim gave him confidence to overcome bullying.
Water-safety skills for all
Department of Education Services Director Mark Ray welcomed the initiative.
“Support of this nature from a collection of private sector organisations that recognise the importance of delivering life-saving skills for children, as well as ensuring future generations can have access to the rich maritime heritage the Cayman Islands is known for, without fear of the ocean, speaks volumes to a collective responsibility of teaching and protecting our youth. It is an invaluable project that we hope to see grow from strength to strength,” Ray told the Compass in an emailed comment.
He thanked the Flowers family, DMS, and Foster’s groups, and the YMCA for launching the initiative, which is expected to commence in the fall semester.
“At government primary schools, the PE curriculum for students in Reception, Year 1, and Year 2, will be focused for a set number of weeks (depending on the size of the school) on teaching students the critical life-saving skill of safely navigating their way in water to safety, up to 10 feet away,” Ray said.
A swim safety curriculum is proposed for use by the Swim Free team, and it is being vetted on the educational component by the Department of Education Services, he added.
“At this time, the Swim Free programme is meeting the costs of implementing this programme through generous sponsors, and government is actively looking at the funding implications to ensure sustainable delivery of this programme for the benefit of future generations of students passing through our government school system,” Ray said.
Flowers said that through the programme, students will have essentially three years of instruction, and each, hopefully, will bring them closer to being able to swim a whole length of a pool and feel confident about swimming.
“We want kids [to] be less likely to drown, and then give them that confidence to continue so that by the time they get into Year Three and they’re starting [to do] more competitive swimming with the government, Lions pool, etc., they have that foundation, and they’re all coming from the same foundation,” he said.
Flowers hopes to replicate the programme and the mobile pool around the region so that children across the Caribbean can learn the skill of swimming and be safe in the water.
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