Swimming Coaches Association to help make swimming safe for all

SWIMMING: The swimming Coaches Association is a non-profit organization committed to improve the level of swimming throughout the country. It is a registered body under the Ministry of Sports, Western Province.

For an island nation with many rivers, waterfalls and large reservoirs, swimming is a vital skill, Indeed, number of deaths due to drowning is quite great and most would have been prevented if the victims had developed some simple skills and had knowledge on water safety. In fact there are many who go down to have a bath in a river or sea never return.

Water accidents are a potential occupational hazard for many who are engaged in fishing, boat riding, sand mining, transportation across water and irrigation constructions. Ideally each one of them should have a proper training in aquatic skills before they embark on such activities.

On the other had swimming is one of the best forms of exercise.

The buoyancy of water provides a gentle environment, free from the stresses of land based exercises.

Therefore it is a perfect physical activity for the elderly, overweight, pregnant, injured or even disabled individuals to participate in.

Swimming improves the general fitness in the community while reduces the morbidity of many life threatening illnesses which include ischaemic heart disease, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, lipid discarders, and lung diseases. Thus it reduces expenditure to the government and the money saved could be utilized in other areas of public health.

SCA has a number of initiatives in the planning stages, broadly speaking the aims are: (a) to train teachers and coaches in swimming with a fully certified course in up to date methodology, scientific and technical information. (b) develop programmes for all ages and abilities over a wide cross section of the community and, importantly, to make them available in remote or poor areas, (c) to educate the public at large about water safety, survival and the benefits of learning to swim and thereby reduce the incidence of aquatic fatalities and injuries, (d) to improve the overall level of swimming in the country.

Workshop April 25 and 26

A Professional Development Workshop, organized by the Swimming Coaches Association of Sri Lanka (SCA) at an all-island level, will be held on 2nd May 2011 and Basic Swimming course will be held on 25th and 26th April at the National Institute of Sports Science (NISS), Torrington Avenue, Colombo 07.

Dr. Bruce Allender from Australian Swimming Coaches Association will conduct the workshop on 2nd May and SCA Basic Swimming Course in running apparently to this workshop for newcomers (Coaches, Teachers, Officials and Parents) before the workshop to uplift the basic knowledge of swimming on 25th and 26th April at the NISS, Torrington Avenue, Colombo 7. The main areas that will be discussed at the May 2nd workshop will be: Aquatic Methodology, Technical Information and new swimming DVD Presentation on International Swimming. Coaches from all districts have already applied for participation in this significant workshop.

Dilshani de Silva, National Coordinator, SCA, informs that any interested person could take part at this one-day workshop and the two day swimming course. Further details on this Professional Development Workshop; and Basic Swimming Course could be obtained from the SCA website www.lankaswimming.lk or telephone number 038 4905962/ 0719263978 of the SCA headquarters.