Swim Vietnam (formerly known as Tribob Children’s Swimming Program) aims to save children’s lives by teaching them how to swim. 10 children drown every day in Vietnam*, where it is the leading cause of injury related death among children over the age of one.

• The program was initiated in 2008 in Hoi An, Central Vietnam. It started by running lessons in local hotel swimming pools and employed one local teacher and one foreign volunteer.
  
  
• In 2009 a pool was built in one of the local schools and the program now employs 15 newly trained local swim teachers and numerous foreign volunteers.
  
  
• Since the inception of the program 1500 children between the ages of 8 - 15 have been successfully taught to swim.
  
  
• The lessons are now an integral part of the community with the children coming to swim class as part of their school curriculum.

There is a dire shortage of swim teachers in Vietnam. This is one of the main causes of the shockingly high incidences of drowning. To address the problem, Swim Vietnam has focused on building the capacity of local teachers in order to create a sustainable solution to help save lives.

• Swim Vietnam enlists foreign volunteers to train local people, giving them the necessary knowledge and skills to be swim teachers.
  
  
• Swim Vietnam, in conjunction with AUSTSWIM (Australia’s national organisation for the teaching of swimming and water safety) provided the first Vietnamese language AUSTSWIM teacher training course in Vietnam. 31 teachers were certified.
  
  
• Swim Vietnam aims to run more training courses to increase the number of qualified Vietnamese swim coaches. These new teachers will then be employed in order to expand the program to more rural areas.