PREY VENG PROVINCE, Cambodia
The Japanese-built school in Kampong Trabek district’s Peam Montear commune is surrounded by water.
In front of the building, a rusted metal gate hugs the banks of the Kampong Trabaek river; to its rear, fields of waterlogged paddy fill the distance.
Here in this tranquil riparian community, like so many others around the country, people must go to the water for daily tasks such as farming, fishing, cooking and cleaning pots, as well as giving their cattle a cool-down scrub.
However, there is danger in the familiar. Probe further, and the anecdotes make it clear that this close relationship with the water has had its consequences.
Just last month, a 13-year-old boy -- villagers say he was visiting from another area -- died from drowning as he attempted to swim across the river, while a two-year-old died after climbing into a large water collection jar.
Last year, a one-year-old baby died from drowning, while a child also died washing one of the family cows in the river. In a village nearby, one youngster got into difficulty in the river. A second made a rescue attempt. Both died.
Drowning as a term is considered a process that has three potential outcomes: Death, survival, or survival with a brain injury.
The data backs up the gravity of the first outcome.
A 2007 report released by The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC) found that 2,094 children died from drowning that year in Cambodia and it is estimated that an average of six children continue to die from drowning across Cambodia every day.
A 2012 UNICEF report said drowning is a “leading cause of death in childhood after infancy” in Cambodia, as well as four other countries in the region.
It also found that “in Cambodia the great majority of drowning was not seen or reported to a health-care facility, whether immediately fatal or subsequently fatal.”
In 2014, the World Health Organization said Cambodian children are twice as likely to drown before the age of 15 than those from other countries in the region. Males are also twice as likely to die from drowning as females.
In Peam Montear commune, as in many others around the country, the instinct is to enter the water to try and save a person from drowning. The second, if back on land, is to turn the victim upside down and shake them.
Neither of these methods is advised.
Conrad Foote felt compelled to address Cambodia’s drowning problem after meeting with a family whose 11-year-old son had died from drowning several years ago.
“He was showing off with his friends, and he died in a canal,” Foote said this week.
Foote, a keen swimmer, completed a Masters in Public Health with a dissertation focusing on the issue of drowning in Cambodia. In 2012, he founded Safety When It Matters (SWIM) Cambodia with the aim of bringing CPR training, education and swimming lessons to as many communities as possible.
“We want to show people how simple it is,” he said. To do this, Foote is using an aquatic survival program designed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a British marine safety charity.
Teachers at the iCan British International School in Phnom Penh, which has partnered with SWIM to implement the program, were given training in how to teach water safety skills and CPR.
On Monday, the community-based education began here in this unassuming village, about eight kilometers (5 miles) upriver from the Vietnamese border.
It’s one of two villages in this commune where volunteers from the Youth Star service program are working -- passing on the water safety skills are set to become part of their mandate.
About 70 children -- and in the afternoon, 10 adults -- gathered at the school Monday to be taught these vital skills.
They learned how to recognize different dangers, and that performing a rescue attempt using a stick or rope from a riverbank is far safer and more effective.
They learned how to perform CPR, thanks to child- and adult-sized dummies on which they could practice, and how to put someone in the recovery position.
They also tried on life jackets.
“There’s a very high intention to save, that’s why so many adults and children die from trying to save someone drowning,” Foote said, adding that parents were also being encouraged to closely supervise their children.
His team is set to return to the village in February to check up on how well the residents have retained what they learned, and to see if they have had to apply any of their new skills.
The ultimate aim, Foote says, is to add swimming lessons to the program.
This can be done almost anywhere there is a body of water, as long as a small, simple bamboo structure can be built; this gives those learning to swim something to hold on to, and a place to put their feet and rest.
“In a three-week period you can get children taught survival swimming, which is the ability to swim 15 meters. That’s good enough to save most children’s lives,” he said.
WHO and the ministry of youth, education and sport run a separate water safety program for communities in Kompong Chhnang province, but Foote’s hope is that such training can span the length and breadth of the country.
Kim Sarin, the ministry’s deputy director of curriculum development, did not respond to questions.
As the team made a seven-kilometer boat journey back toward their bus Monday, it was on a river that was very much alive.
Scores of people were gathering their nets, washing, cleaning utensils and bathing their cattle.
As monumental as the task of disseminating safety in the water is, there are clear signs of hope for a safer way to interact with the water.
Yelps came from one of the riverbanks, where a man was swimming with a child. The young boy, waving to the boat, was wearing a life jacket.
“That,” said Foote,” is great to see.”
