Drowning has been highlighted among the most death traps with less attention world over, ranging from water bodies, floods to pools.
According to the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), most of the cases registered involve children, youth and people working in and around water bodies.
The report also reveals that, a good number of cases hasn’t been reported and hence unregistered. It has been discovered that the world is in drowning information blackout due to less awareness and information flow.
As the world gears up to the World Drowning Prevention Day, slated for July 25,2025 under the theme “Your story can save a life: Drowning prevention through shared experiences.”, GHAI through a swimming workshop early this month at Akamwesi Swimming training ground, Kampala-Uganda with the help of Reach A Hand Uganda (RAHU) and the Life Saving Association of Uganda, trained communicator advocates especially from the media, on how to stay afloat, use safety gear and perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
The workshop was designed to equip communicators with the skills to turn lived experience into compelling, life-saving stories that can influence public understanding and policy action on drowning prevention.
Participants being guided about in-water survival basic skills.
The workshop had experienced instructors and couches like Nsamba Deogratius from the Life Saving Association of Uganda who shared surviving floating and in-water surviving skills.
Participants were able to learn vital insights into water safety, an experience that, combined with strategic communication support from GHAI to enable them change evidence and lived reality into powerful, policy-relevant advocacy.
Trained participants encountered the raw reality of drowning, not as a line in story telling but as a moment of fear, disorientation, and the struggle to stay afloat, and by use of swim noodles, kickboards and pull buoys swimming aid, they felt what it takes to survive.
Justine Okoth, Communications Assistant at Chuma Technologies and Innovations Centre Foundation
(HUMATEIC) Foundation, one of the participants, expressed how important the workshop shaped his understanding.
“I thought I understood drowning prevention. But being in that water changed everything. My next post won’t be just about statistics—it will be about survival.” He noted.
The workshop organized by Justice and Development Council (JDC), Safe Transport and Survivors Support Uganda (STASSU), Design without Borders (DwB), Chuma Technologies and Innovations Centre Foundation (CHUMATEIC) and Reach A Hand Uganda (RAHU) didn’t just talk about drowning prevention, but rather lived it.
GHAI, said, that at an organizational level, their approach has always married evidence with experience, their data has for long coupled with reality and hence powerful result and policy-relevant advocacy.
Some of the participants listening to couch Couch Nsamba Deogratius.
In order to reduce on the case and create more awareness about drowning, such trainings should act as reminders and powerful tools in prevention, not just by legislation and availability of equipment but the story well told, lived and widely shared, that is when such becomes a life changing force.
It is important to note that, the World Drowning Prevention Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly in April 2021 through Resolution A/RES/75/273, “Global drowning prevention”.
The same resolution recognized the global impact of drowning and called for coordinated action to prevent it and one of the aims is to create awareness about the tragedy of drowning and promote effective prevention strategies.
By; Mukose Arnold Anthony.
Digitalk TV, Health, Court, Politics, Human Rights and Feature Journalist.