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The 2022 program built on UniSA’s similar, OMEP-supported, program delivered in the same community in December 2018. At the start of the 2022 program, we noticed that children who had participated in the 2018 program were far more advanced than similar-aged children who had not participated in 2018. We also observed that younger children attending their first swimming program had emergent water confidence and safety skills absent in the equivalent cohort of learners in 2018, testifying to the ongoing value of the initial (2018) swimming program, at individual, family and community levels.

The lessons included recognising and responding to dangers in the water, swimming skills, performing rescues and being rescued. To meet each child’s learning needs and build trust, children were grouped, by age-range and then according to swimming ability, with the same team of teachers every lesson. The teachers focused on enhancing children’s water-confidence and learning through engaging and enjoyable lesson designs. Lessons also used the multilingual book for young children in Fiji entitled ‘Keimami Na Dau Qalo Qaqarauni / Hum Sab Safe Swimmers Hai / We Are Safe Swimmers’. (Open Access copyright provided to DFAT, the Fiji Ministry of Education, Fiji Ministry of Sport and Recreation, Fiji Early Childhood Teachers Association, Let’s Swim Fiji and Fiji Surf) created and OMEP(SA)-funded during the 2018 tour.

Enrolments to the swimming and water-safety program were mainly completed at children’s homes, at a local village’s Sunday school and at the end of a day at Korovuto kindergarten. These times allowed a) parents to voice questions and anxieties, b) children to meet and get to know the program’s teachers, and c) the teachers to get to know the children, to learn a bit about children’s families’ cultures and life-worlds, and to hear about children’s current abilities and any fears about learning to swim. Dr Bec Neill, Dr Belinda MacGill and Dr Alexandra Diamond (academic staff from UniSA’s Education Futures) accompanied the undergraduates and supported the program’s smooth and effective delivery.  UniSA participants gained insights to local families’ lives by dining 8 times in local family homes. This also benefitted families who were paid head to cover food and preparation costs.