The 2012 Swing to Swim Charity Golf Day has been confirmed for 17 March.
The Vietnam Swans and Montgomerie Links are pleased to confirm that next year’s Swing to Swim Charity Golf Day will be held on 17 March 2012.
Jon Tomlinson, the General Director of Montgomerie Links said that:
Montgomerie Links and the Vietnam Swans are delighted to again have the opportunity to support our local swimming programs, namely Swim Safe Danang and Swim Vietnam Hoi An. (It is so important) to contribute to the life saving efforts of these respective programs while supporting the efforts of the local peoples’ committees who work tirelessly to get the message of drowning preventions out to the communities.
Phil Johns, National President of the Vietnam Swans added,
Last year, we held our inaugural Swing to Swim Charity Golf Day and raised an amazing $25,000 (click here for full story). It was a great achievement – but, sadly, it was not enough. Vietnamese children are still drowning in alarming numbers. Together with Montgomerie Links, Swim Vietnam and Swim Safe Danang (Royal Life Saving Society of Australia), we have a chance to do something far more tangible than merely pass informed commentary. Swing to Swim 2012 will raise awareness and money to fund vital swimming programs that will make a real difference.
The death rate for drownings in Vietnam has risen by more than 50 per cent in the past four years.
Underlining the scale of the drowning tragedy, the Thanh Nhien Nespaper reported on 9 September 2011, that more than 6,000 children drown in Vietnam every year. This figure is 50 per cent higher than in 2007. Below is an excerpt from the article:
The Khang Nhat Secondary School opened the new school year on a sombre note.
The opening ceremony included a moment of silence for four 9th graders who drowned in a nearby river just a day earlier.
On Sunday (September 4), 12 students from the mountainous Son Duong District in Tuyen Quang Province went to a cave and had to wade across a shallow section of the Pho Day River, after parking their bikes at Pham Van But’s house on the riverside at around 2 p.m.
But said he heard the students call for help ten minutes after they had left his house. He rushed outside and tried to rescue the drowning children.
After giving CPR to one of the students, Hoang Thi Thu Thao, who was rescued by another local, But plunged into the river with several other locals but they were too late.
The first body was salvaged at around 4 p.m. and the fourth at 6 a.m. on Monday morning downstream along the rapidly flowing river.
To read the rest of the article on line, click here or, to read the original article in the printed newspaper, click onto Vietnamese children drowning at increasingly alarming rates.
