Swimming in the Peruvian desert!

The month of October has been a wet one for grade 5 and 6 students in Villa Triunfo and Victor Maldonado as for the third year running GVI Phoenix Peru has been leading a 4 week course aimed at raising confidence levels in water and teaching basic swimming techniques. A 2:1 student to volunteer ratio, coupled with the students’ determination to learn has seen them make incredible progress with the majority of Villa Triunfo students able to swim a width of their pool after just three lessons and Victor Maldonado students, a lesson behind, mastering kicking techniques and swimming with floats.

The biggest accomplishment for many of the children has been losing their fear of the water: jumping into the pool; putting their heads under the water; and forgetting their inhabitations whilst playing games of water polo, marco polo, sharks and minnows and swimming races. Our volunteers have been absolutely outstanding, braving near arctic conditions in the unheated swimming pools at 9am in the morning (some even turning blue!) and, more importantly, encouraging, reassuring and developing our students’ confidence. Well done guys, this is such an important skill to develop, and the results that we are seeing are incredible!

Swimming in the Peruvian desert!