Among the activities at this year’s Flowers Sea Swim was a mini swim involving 32 Caymanian children who swam their first event in open water, a product of the Swim Free programme, which was launched nearly one year ago.
“Many of those kids weren’t swimming on day one and they went out there and swam 25 metres in the open sea,” Jeff Wiseman, head coach of the Swim Free programme, told the Compass.
The initiative, founded by the Flowers family and backed by the government, DMS, and the Foster’s Group, was started to teach primary school students to swim, without their parents having to bear the burden of paying for lessons.
The initiative consists of a custom-built mobile swimming pool that is transported from school to school. Since its launch, about 1,000 kids have taken part in the programme.
“At every school we had at least three to five kids that were absolutely terrified to swim,” Wiseman said. “Maybe these are the biggest success stories because a lot of them were not getting in [to the pool].”
However, slowly but surely, over 10 classes, Wiseman helped those youngsters overcome their fear of swimming to be able to finish the last 25 metres of the always-popular Flowers Sea Swim on 15 June.
Identifying talent
Although the programme’s main purpose is to ‘push for every single Caymanian child to learn to swim, not as a privilege, but as a right’, some talented swimmers have also emerged during the lessons.
“It’s about accessibility,” he said. “Flowers provided the pool, and this is a 100% charity that is being gifted to primary school kids and 90% of these kids are Caymanian.”
Wiseman noted that children, especially from John A. Cumber Primary School, have showcased outstanding abilities while being taught.
“When I got to West Bay, there were about six kids whose learning curve was just incredible,” he said. “I know that part of the island may have some restrictions for the kids in terms of getting to the next level and getting exposed.”
The kids that they identified as having the potential to be competitive and possibly represent Cayman, were offered another opportunity after Dara Flowers Burke sought the assistance of a local club.
“With the help of Dara, we reached out to a swim club who, in turn, came back to us willing to sponsor 10 kids, meaning they are going to cover their training expenses,” Wiseman said.
Dave Kelsheimer, one of the founding partners of Swim Free, told the Compass that it is crucial for Caribbean people – who are mainly of African descent – to learn to swim.
Kelsheimer, who as part of the US Olympic swimming staff helped lead that country to multiple medals, noted that being part of Swim Free has been the most rewarding work he has undertaken.
“If you are from the Caribbean, you are three times more likely to drown than those from North America, and if you are of African descent, you are eight times more likely to drown,” he said. “The number one cause of accidental death worldwide for 5-and-under is drowning and if you are of African descent that extends all the way up to age 13. It is a scary statistic.”
But it’s a statistic that Cayman is working to improve.
“Being able to help these families who generationally have not had the opportunity to learn to swim – their kids can’t swim, parents can’t swim … the beauty of Swim Free is we are breaking that cycle,” Kelsheimer said.
The programme is a part of the government primary school curriculum, making it mandatory, and is just as important as English and mathematics, according to Kelsheimer.
The next stroke
“Our goal within 10 years is that every single kid within our government primary schools is able to swim,” Flowers Burke told the Compass. “We have the potential of expanding it to other grades because right now we’re doing it through reception into years 1 and 2 and maybe we can extend it for additional weeks.”
She said that her family would be open to sharing their ideas with other Caribbean countries so more children can learn to swim and avoid becoming another drowning statistic.
“If there is a government in the Caribbean that is interested in replicating this programme, we are very happy to give them the information so they can better their people too. That would be an incredible ripple effect of this entire programme but obviously our focus is the Cayman Islands, though that doesn’t mean that it has to be limited.”
From teaching hundreds of students across every single government primary school, to identifying future Caymanian competitive swimmers, many of whom took part in the recent sea swim, Flowers Burke said that, despite minor hiccups, the programme has been delivering what it set out to do.
“This was our first year and I can see that it was relatively successful based on our goals, and now we’re going to hopefully continue it for a second year and re-evaluate to see what is possible for expansion.”
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