Minister Launches Seaside Aquatics National Peace Swimming Programme to Enhance Youth Engagement and Water Safety

A drive to get more young Bajans to learn to swim has been linked with the government’s crime prevention initiative and launched by the minister with responsibility for crime prevention, Corey Lane.

He inaugurated the Seaside Aquatics National Peace Swimming Programme on Wednesday at the Seaside Aquatics swimming club in Salmonds, St Lucy, which aims to teach students and some teachers not only how to swim but also the importance of water safety and the benefits of swimming.

Linking the swim programme to broader crime prevention endeavours, Lane emphasised the government’s commitment to transforming the nation through tangible programmes and initiatives.

“We could have done like a lot of jurisdictions, and blanket the country with law enforcement…. But at the end of the day, we do not need more prisons, we need more programmes and more projects,” he said.

The National Peace Programme encompasses situational crime prevention, social innovation and youth engagement.

Drawing parallels between crime prevention and swimming, the minister in the Attorney General’s Office stressed the importance of providing positive alternatives for at-risk youth.

“Our young people need to be active because the devil finds work for idle hands so we make sure that those hands are not idle,” Lane said. “We make sure that we provide positive projects and programmes so that they can be engaged in a meaningful way.”

He further noted a philosophical rationale behind supporting initiatives like the swim programme, highlighting the need to instil a culture of risk-taking and resilience, and drawing parallels between learning to swim and navigating life’s challenges.

“By teaching more people to swim, we can teach people to take calculated risks,” he said, summing up the programme’s overarching objective.

Lane left the students with a call to action: “Grasp this and other opportunities with both hands.”

Peter Phillips, MP for St Lucy, and Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Bradshaw-Archer also addressed the launch, showing their support for the programme and joining the minister in encouraging students to take advantage of the opportunity.

Terrence Haynes, managing director of Seaside Aquatics Club, revealed the programme was “a long time coming”. He said the club started in 2017 due to “an overwhelming need for persons to learn to swim”. Haynes, who learnt to swim at age six, shared hopes that children joining the programme may reap similar benefits.

“After learning to swim, I took to fishing, surfing and diving… water polo, synchronised swimming,” he said. “Also, something that is normally forgotten is the soft skills, which are developed through sports like confidence building.

“For the kids that will come here and not know how to swim, and then be able to master the skill, that will do mountains for their confidence and discipline… things you can apply to other facets of your life. You also learn respect for others, time management… so we’re not just teaching kids how to swim,” Haynes continued.

He told the gathering that swimming provided him the opportunity to represent Barbados at the highest level, travel and network. The swim club official expressed the hope that, like other Caribbean nations, Barbados will one day make swimming in schools mandatory.