And some of the future dive-masters for that resort may come out of "Summer Swim Pro ',' a two week swimming program for youths, sponsored and facilitated by the Belize Police Department, and The Belize Coast Guard. It began today at the Princess Hotel Pool where 50 kids, from 10 different neighborhoods in Belize city, got a first hand opportunity to engage in swimming lessons instructed by some of Belize's strongest swimmers from the Coast guard ranks. Today was the programme's first intake, and by the end of the session these kids will be leaving with the new found knowledge directed towards learning an essential life saving and potential money earning skill:
ACP Howell Gillett, Commander of the National Community Policing Unit
"I'm pleased to say we started this partnership with the Belize coast guard in 2018.. There was a pause in 2020 and 2021 due to covid so we are averaging around 200 kids who are benefitting from this initiative and we are so pleased we have so many other young people who wanted to participate but we have limits and constraints so we had to settle with 50 we want to do it not just on an annual basis but we want to do it at least twice because the summer is long and we want to engage young people."
Ensign Andrew Moody, BCG, Swimming Instructor
"Today is the beginning of our swim pro programme. The Belize Coast Guard has partnered with the Belize Police Department to bring swimming to the children thats a part of this programme."
"Today is the beginning of the programme, so we are basically going through the three major steps. And this morning we are teaching them how to properly enter into the water. We are teaching them Bobs and we are also teaching them how to find an object in the water. What this does is get them comfortable in the water, because as we notice the kids will love water but they are afraid to get their heads under the water and to properly learn to swim you must be able to learn to be comfortable with your heads going in and out of the water."
"So the benefits of this is getting your kid to learn to swim and so that the parents can be comfortable having their kids going over to friends to swim or going on trips and things like that throughout the summer time."
Prior to 2020 roughly 200 children were participating in the Summer swim Pro initiative. The department and the Belize Coast guard are in the process of expanding back to these numbers.
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