Floods in central Vietnam

In the last week, natural disasters in Indonesia, Samoa, the Philippines and central Vietnam have been devastating.

What is not so widely known is that every day, Vietnam’s children suffer a tragedy. On average, 40 children per day drown in Vietnam.

Clint Lambert, a Swannie, is now pushing an idea that would tap into up to $10,ooo of funding if he wins the Ideablob “competition”:

With your help Float International will make a major impact on this death toll with its survival swimming schools – providing poorer rural women with the skills to teach children water safety and how to keep afloat until help arrives.

Idea Description

Float International has established lasting partnerships with existing swimming schools in Vietnam and Australia and now seeks to implement a pilot survival swimming project in a southern rural province of Vietnam that will reduce child drowning mortality rates by training and providing a market salary for economically challenged women to operate their own community-based Float schools. However the organization initially needs non-capital equipment to ensure the project is safe, successful and sustainable, while additional funding is obtained from corporate sponsorship and grants.

Click here for video of the recent typhoon and flooding.

What will you do if you win $10,000 for this idea?

This money would serve two primary purposes for our group. First, this money would help purchase much-needed floatation aids such as kickboards, floating ropes and a safe float pool that can be produced locally and used in rivers, streams and lakes, along with written materials to promote a safety message. The second purpose would be to pay staff of the pilot project market rates to help implement the survival swimming school, ensuring that local capacity is built, women are empowered and money is injected into marginalized local economies.

If you like the idea and would like to support them, you will need to register your vote. That can all be done at the Ideablob. Click now, register and help them support Vietnam’s children.