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Merit Maker: An Easily Adaptable Drowning Prevention Strategy

102 views · Published 7 December 2018 · 5:05 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Greater Belize Media | GBM · 2018 · News & Politics

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In the following story we take you to Thailand. The south-east Asian country is known for its tropical beaches and world famous islands like Phuket; it’s elaborate Buddah Temples and friendly people with the world famous Thai smile. But Thailand is also known as one of the countries the highest drowning rate especially for children under fifteen. Now why are we telling you about drowning in Thailand? Well, like Belize, access to water in Thailand is easy and that puts persons at risk, especially those who don’t know how to swim. And as we reported on Wednesday, for this year as many as fifteen persons have died as a result of drowning. And this number may not seem comparable to homicides or R.T.A.s, but it is of big concern to the World Health Organisation because every hour of every day more than forty people lose their lives to drowning – making that more than three hundred and sixty thousand deaths per year from something that is preventable. So those under five years old in low and middle income countries are at the greatest risk. Here in Belize, four toddlers have perished by drowning in wells, tanks and ponds for this year. And so, last month when the World Health Organisation held a World Safety Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Reporter Andrea Polanco and thirteen other journalists from around the world were selected by the International Center for Journalists to attend the event. Safety 2018 as it’s dubbed, is a forum where injury prevention and safety promotion was discussed among the world’ leading researchers, practitioners and policy makers. They shared solutions and best practices to address injury and violence that are a major public health burden across the world. As a part of their trip, Andrea and three of her colleagues were invited by the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia to do a field trip in the southern province of Thailand called Surat Thani. In the south, they have implemented a drowning prevention strategy called Merit Maker. They use simple and easy strategies to educate families on water safety so as to prevent drowning.  Andrea shares more:

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