Your help is requested - help in Vietnam
It costs $20 to train one child and upto 32 kids in Vietnam drown each day?
It seems to me that it would be better to explain it to village elders and local schools who could then pick out some adults in each community and have them teach all the local kids to swim.
And to have them put up danger signs by rivers and pools. Some rivers are fast flowing and even good swimmers could end up in trouble in them.
Seems to me that $20. is a real bargain if it saves even one life!
In Asia, a child drowns every 45 seconds according to the site.
Why do local people just let their kids do as they will; even to playing in deep water if they cannot swim, and fast moving rivers if they can, and where predators may lurk? Under fives allowed alone near open water? WTH?
New kids born every day, so this is an unending problem which needs endless millions thrown at it, according to the site.
Yet in Europe where there are also rivers, ponds, lakes, the sea, etc we get hardly any kids drown, although many of them cannot swim either.
The thing about charities like this, they make everything appear as bad as possible, even to telling lies, to get the maximum amount of money they can so they can have nice big offices, nice big cars, nice big houses, etc.
I've travelled around Asia for decades and few kids seem to go near rivers and such. The site makes no effort to back up their claims so I don't believe them. There are plenty of bogus charities in Asia getting money off of stupid westerners and I suppose the old orphan scam is wearing a bit thin now so they need to diversify.
Why do local people just let their kids do as they will; even to playing in deep water if they cannot swim, and fast moving rivers if they can, and where predators may lurk? Under fives allowed alone near open water? WTH?
Westerners often fail to realise that when families are just doing what they need to survive, the kind of "helicopter parenting" you're advocating is not really an option. The parents are busy with their own work and don't have the luxury of sitting around a house all day looking after kids.
Also, as someone who grew up in a developing country where people just "let their kids do as they will", I can tell you that it's an awesome way to grow up playing with a whole posse of local kids. Of course there are dangers (very real ones), but then there's dangers in sitting your kids in front of an iPad or television all day as well.
This seems like a great charity. $20 to teach a child how to swim? That barely covers a single lesson for my kids swimming lessons!
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