The chance that a teenager born outside of Europe is drowning in the Netherlands is 16 times greater than the chance that a teenager born in the Netherlands will drown. This is according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. NH started a conversation with a few migrants. What do they do to make their children resilient in the water -rich Netherlands? And how well can they actually swim themselves?
Ghaade Mskineh (33) from Zaandam was born in Syria, just like her two oldest children, daughters of 13 and 15. Her youngest, a twelve -year -old son, was born in Jordan, after the family had fled the homeland.
“In our country you have no swimming diplomas,” says Ghaadeer, who earlier For the camera of NH told. “But I can swim. I learned that in the sea,” she goes back to her childhood, “when we went on vacation.”
Not immediately aware of dangers
The coastline of Syria is relatively short at 200 kilometers, but certainly before the war, coastal towns such as Latakia and Tartous on the Mediterranean Sea were important attractions for domestic tourists.
Ten months after her husband arrived in the Netherlands, Ghadeer and the children follow the plane. They end up in an asylum seekers’ center in Almere. “There was a lot of water there, but I was not immediately aware of the dangers of the water in the Netherlands. We were not warned about it either.”
Those warnings will follow later. “We heard the stories during integration,” she says. As soon as she has her life on the ride, she decides to send her children to swimming lessons. “The oldest two both have two diplomas,” she says proudly. Her youngest also has a diploma despite a growth retardation. “And he will soon go for the second.”
Recreational swimming does not often do the family. “But every now and then we go to a swimming pool,” says Ghadeer. “So that they keep training it, to ensure that they don’t lose it.”
Learn to swim in river
Syrian Mustafa is 30 years old, but never learned to swim. “I never had the chance,” he explains. Grandpas and grandmothers and mother can’t do it either.
“My father and brother did. My brother learned it three or four years ago from his girlfriend.” That was in the Orontes river, about fifty kilometers in the north of Homs. In the absence of swimming pools, many Syrians from the neighborhood learn to swim there.
Because he now lives in a water -rich country, he hopes to learn to swim someday, but confesses that he has done little about it since his arrival in the Netherlands, now six years ago. “I once went to the Mirandabad to inquire about swimming lessons, but they said I had to come back a week later.”
The fact that Mustafa cannot swim does not mean that he always avoids water. Yet he is always wary. “Sometimes I go to Zandvoort, but then I don’t go into the sea. And I only go into a swimming pool if I can stand there.”
Muhammad (25) can swim well, he thinks. The Syrian can do that when he arrives in the Netherlands nine years ago, he says. Where did he learn that? “Also in the orontes, I was there with a cousin of 1.85 meters. He was in the river, and I tried to swim towards him. After a few times it succeeded.”
In the asylum seekers’ center they are impressed by his swimming skills, he says. “I swam my first job completely under water, then I immediately received all my diplomas,” he continues with a wink.
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In the end, he had three swimming lessons at Sportplaza in Amsterdam-West through his education, including his C diploma for rescue swimming. Yet he had already proven to control that discipline much earlier.
“One day I walked past the coast in Athens and saw a boy who was drowning. He was about 12 years old and also came from Syria. I immediately jumped into the water, with clothing and all, and took it out. A special story that I will not forget.”