Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Learning to Swim- One of Life's Most Important Skills!



There was a time in this country, that many major universities required that students demonstrate proficiency in swimming, prior to graduation. The thought behind this requirement was that universities were preparing young people with the skills needed to survive in the world.

These universities knew that virtually all of their graduates would find themselves in a situation at some point in their life, where they needed to know how to swim and they wanted them to be ready. Sadly, this requirement has been dropped at many schools and many people are now left to learn how to swim on their own. Some families love being in and around the water and children in those families generally learn at a very young age. However, there are many families that do not spend much time around the water and as a result, those children often lack basic swimming or water survival skills.

Swim tests are one of the first activities for all Anokijig campers. We surrouned a beautiful lake and many of our activities take place in it or near it, so we need to know what kind of swimmers our campers are. Some campers come to Anokijig having never learned how to swim, while other campers do know how to swim, but have a fear of any body of water that doesn't have chlorine in it. Our swim program helps all Anokijig campers develop a comfort level in lake water, with many of our campers learning how to swim.

We think this is still an important skill for all of our campers to learn and we're happy to be able to provide this service to children and families. We recently created a YouTube video that also talks about our swimming program, which you can watch here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BB4UEVx1U

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