7 minute read
Panje Project
SWIMMING SKILLS TO SAVE LIVES in Zanzibar
The people of the Zanzibar archipelago live, work and play around water, yet the majority of them don’t know how to swim. NGO The Panje Project has now taught 10,000 islanders this vital skill and changed the islands’ attitude to swimming. However, as Mark Edwards finds out, the project’s life-saving work is now also at risk.
Wherever you are on the Zanzibar archipelago you’ll see a sea of white sails as dhows carry fishermen, goods or passengers between the islands. Closer into shore there are the seaweed farmers tending to their underwater crop and children laughing and playing on the beaches. Here, water brings life. But it can also take it away.
Juwairia, a young Zanzibari woman, is well aware of the potential danger. She was recently enjoying a day out at Kendwa Beach, a 3kmlong stretch of sand near the tip of Zanzibar Island, when she noticed a young boy who had got out of his depth and was struggling to stay afloat. He could not swim and nor could his friends – who had stuck to the shallows – so they could not save him. The boy was drowning. Juwairia knew what she had to do. She swam out to the sinking child, pulled him back to the surface and while supporting him on his back, brought him back to shore. The boy was shocked and scared, but he was OK. Juwairia had saved his life.
Swimming courses
That Juwairia could swim and knew how to safely perform a rescue in the water was owed to her attending a swimming course in nearby Nungwi run by local non-profit group The Panje Project (TPP). She proved such a capable student she is now one of the project’s swimming instructors.
That the boy and his friends could not swim is common in Zanzibar. According to the latest figures from market research specialists Ipsos Tanzania 68 per cent of children and 71 per cent of women in the archipelago do not even have the most fundamental of swimming skills and cannot rescue themselves in deep water.
Helping thousands
These figures are deeply concerning when you consider islanders live, work and play on and around the water. The Panje Project has done much to change the narrative. Since it was set up in 2013 it has taught swimming skills, aquatic safety and drowning prevention techniques to more than 10,000 inhabitants of Unguja and Pemba – the archipelago’s biggest and most populous islands. In that time the project’s operations have swollen from one class of 20 students in a community hall in Nungwi to a cluster of teaching hubs in Stone Town, Matemwe and Paje in Unguja and Chakechake and Micheweni district in Pemba working in tandem with the Zanzibar Scout Association and Tanzanian Red Cross.
The lessons, led by self-funded international volunteers and a growing number of former TPP students like Juwairia, are safe and fun – who wouldn’t want to learn to swim in the bath-warm, crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean? Students practise in a buoyed-off shallow area to build their confidence and hold on to empty gallon cooking oil containers as flotation aids. TPP grant manager Muhammad Said tells me: “By the time the training ends, a person has the ability to swim at least 25 metres as well being able to roll from their front to their back and back to front. They will also be able to stay afloat for more than 60 seconds. We believe this gives them the means to survive around water. These skills can be further developed after the training by any person who is interested”
The project is also spreading out of the water. In collaboration with the Zanzibar Ministry of Education & Vocational Training, it is training teachers at government schools to deliver lessons on staying stay safe in and around the water. So far, more than 1,000 teachers have undergone the training with around 400 schools involved.
Survival swimming
With the safety message being spread wide and students becoming the next cycle of teachers, the project appears sustainable, but TPP’s future is not assured. This year will mark the end of the contract the project has with the UK’s Royal
National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), which has given financial support to TPP from the start. Said believes there is much still to be done and is hopeful the work of the project, which has always kept its running costs low, can continue “if we can acquire funding from well-wishers and the community”.
Certainly, TPP – which began with overseas volunteers making up the majority of its teaching staff – has spent years gaining the trust and the approval of coastal communities on the island. As well as spreading its survival swimming message with film and drama presentations at local madrassas (Islamic schools), the project has run art classes and even donated a rescue vessel to the Nungwi sea search and rescue team. Such integration has been key to the success of its work as many of the barriers to learning to swim on the islands are cultural. Most men – even fishermen – struggle to see the point of dedicating hours to a skill that seems to have no economic reward. For women on an archipelago where 98 per cent of the population is Muslim there are cultural boundaries around swimming.
Said says: “There are cultural and social norms here associating women with household work and less with outside sports and activities. Many of the women do not feel comfortable going to the beaches where men are present and swimming costumes are considered inappropriate dress for women.”
Such barriers mean many women don’t learn to swim – research on drowning risk by Ipsos revealed 67 per cent of Zanzibari women were considered vulnerable – yet seaweed farming, which is almost entirely carried out by women, is becoming one of the archipelago’s most profitable enterprises. It’s a risky job for non-swimmers with tidal changes here often marked and rapid and better growing results to be had in deeper waters.
TPP worked closely with these communities to convince them of the importance of girls learning to swim and presented solutions sensitive to the religious concerns such as full-body swimming gear – including a head scarf – as well as girls-only classes taught by a woman instructor.
Said says: “We spoke with local and religious leaders and were able to get them to educate the communities and encourage girls to participate in the training.”
Children are the most vulnerable group according to the Ipsos figures – 81 per cent are a drowning risk – and they can also be a challenge to reach. Setting aside time for swimming lessons amid their busy schedule was crucial.
“Children here have school in the morning, Quran classes in the afternoons and then play time for just two hours,” says Said. “In the evenings they may either be home studying or attending lectures at the mosque.”
Again, TPP has managed to convince communities and schools of the life-saving importance of learning to swim and lessons have found a place in madrassa and state schools. The lessons are fun and there are regular swimming competitions which spur the children to improve.
There are still many more islanders to reach – Ipsos figures even suggest that more than a third of the archipelago’s fishermen can’t swim – and there is the worry that lives will be put at risk if TPP’s work is hit by funding issues once the RNLI contract ends.
The hope is that if TPP continues swimming will become the norm here, not just to save lives, but to make the most of them. After all, being able to swim reveals the magical underwater world Zanzibar offers just offshore with coral reefs teeming with marine life and dolphins playing in the shallows at dawn.
Training tutors
“The training also opens up opportunities for employment for the locals and for the students it gives them a chance to take part in competitive swimming and other water sports,” says Said. “But the most important is to be safe around the water and ability to rescue yourself and others.” Juwairia knows how good that feels.
