Water Safety For Refugees

Our Water Safety for Refugees program was launched in 2007 and features swimmers taking an active role in water safety by working with refugee children to teach basic water survival skills.

FAST trains competitive swimmers to work with experienced swimming instructors to teach the basics of water safety and drowning prevention to refugees in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. Many refugees are relocated “from harm to home” and are now living in apartments in Arizona. Refugee children are often exposed to swimming pools for the first time in their lives. What a tragedy it would be for these kids to escape the living hell of a refugee camp and drown in a swimming pool. FAST volunteers are competitive swimmers who are at home in the water. Even with an insurmountable language barrier our swimmers relate to these kids in a way that no one else can.

We envision our water safety outreach to go beyond refugees to other groups in the community who are open to working with us to prevent drowning.

Please contact us for more information.