Bill Ramos, IU professor of recreation, park and tourism studies, traveled to Vietnam on Wednesday to evaluate the water safety program taught by Swim for Life, an organization that teaches aquatic skills to children in the southeast Asian country.
He will spend more than two weeks assessing the water safety taught in classrooms, though the organization gives swimming lessons to children as well. The World Health Organization has designated accidental drowning as a neglected public health crisis, and it was one of the leading causes of death in at least 85 countries according to a recent report.
The swimming program in Vietnam is co-directed by IU alumna Beth Kreitl, who contacted the University last year after her group decided to incorporate an academic research component. She eventually got in touch with Ramos who, in addition to being a professor in the School of Public Health, is also director of the University’s Aquatic Institute and a member of the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council’s Aquatics Subcouncil.
Swim for Life is a subsidiary of Golden West Humanitarian Foundation, an organization that assists people in areas with undetonated landmines and other munitions.
One of the aquatics program’s goals is to secure more support and funding from the Vietnamese government and other organizations like WHO, which directs international health in the United Nations, and UNICEF, which seeks to protect children around the world.
“I see this work as a global responsibility,” Ramos said in a press release from IU. “I hope to not only help programs throughout the world educate people on water safety, and therefore reduce their drowning rates, but to also bring back the knowledge I gain to apply to people here.”
