One company has made swimming safer and more fun.

Ask any parent about trying to teach their kids to swim and they’ll most likely tell you a story of their child being too afraid to get in the water. Whether it’s a river, the ocean, or even just the shallow end of a pool, the water can be a scary place for a child who doesn’t know how to swim.

And kids have a right to be scared.

THE NUMBERS

In the USA, drowning remains the second leading cause of injury-related death among children ages 1 to 14. In the UK, one person drowns every 17 hours and drowning is still the third highest cause of accidental death amongst children. Contrary to popular belief, most drowning deaths occur in inland waters such as rivers, lakes and pond.

Other times a child is simply embarrassed. She sees other kids swimming and feels self-conscious that she doesn’t already know how. Swim lessons are often cost-prohibitive for many families, and thus hundreds of thousands of kids never learn how to swim. Learning how to swim is like learning how to ride a bike. Once learned, he or she will keep it with them for the rest of their lives. With over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface covered in water, swimming is a survival skill that is essential to every human being..

THE REALITY

Most children are introduced to water with a set of cheaply made inflatable arm-bands that do nothing to encourage swimming development. The majority of inflatable armbands have the following features in common:

• They are made from precious natural resources and shipped half way across the world.
• In some cases they contain harmful chemicals such as toxic plasticizers, like naphthalene and phthalates. Phthalates are believed to damage the liver, kidneys and reproductive organs. Phthalates are almost completely non-biodegradable.
• They are often inflated orally by different people which creates a hygiene problem.
• They are yanked up a child’s arm often causing discomfort
• They can have sharp edges which scratch them and others around them.
• They do very little to encourage swimming techniques.
• Small leaks often go unnoticed making it dangerous for young swimmers.
• If they are damaged they are irreparable.
• They eventually end up on our ever expanding landfills.

THE ANSWER: MONKEYSWIMMERS ARE BORN!

A small company, Rainbow Swim Ltd., started by two parents has created an answer: Monkey Swimmers! Monkey Swimmers are a uniquely designed, colorful arm band. Made from skin friendly and environmentally friendly reusable foam, they are made to last.

The genius of the idea comes from two innovations in the product. Each set of Monkey Swimmers comes with a brightly colored, brilliantly illustrated children’s book called “Monkey’s Can’t Swim”. The book tells the story about two little monkeys that cannot swim so their mum invents a fun product from banana skins that encourages them to get in the water and start learning.

The second element is a tiered swim program facilitated by the design of Monkey Swimmers. As children’s confidence and ability in the water increases parents can reduce the buoyancy slightly by removing foam layers from the Monkey Swimmers. This speeds up child swimming development meaning fewer swimming lessons, fewer accidents, reduces the millions of plastic armbands that end up on landfill and cuts CO2 emissions. And from the book kids learn more about the environment.

Monkeyswimmers  actively encourage both parents and children to develop water skills.  Increased swim education reduces the number of avoidable tragic deaths caused by drowning, many of which are the direct result of not teaching children the correct water skills at an early age.

Monkey Swimmers are the perfect example of  how creativity, commerce (and some good parenting) collide.