Africa-Press – Mauritius. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a joint collaboration on the School Swimming programme, was signed, this morning, by the Mauritius Sports Council (MSC) and Quality Beverages Ltd (QBL).
Signatories were the president of the MSC, Mrs Sarah Rawat-Currimjee, and QBL’s Marketing Manager, Mrs Karishma Gopy. The signature ceremony was held at the Phoenix Gymnasium, in Phoenix.
The School Swimming programme was initiated on a pilot basis since 2017 at the initiative of the MSC in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Recreation.
The programme aims at offering Grade 4 students, from about thirty primary schools, the opportunity to practice swimming in a secure environment and under the supervision of qualified coaches.
The target is to extend the programme to around 10,000 students in primary schools across Mauritius. In her address, Mrs Rawat-Currimjee emphasised on the importance of promoting a sports culture among the youths, particularly across schools.
She recalled that the MSC has been encouraging students to participate in sports-related activities, hence the requisite of introducing school swimming programmes to inculcate the children with swimming skills.
According to her, following the various partnerships with the private sector and the different sponsors, the school swimming programme has become highly successful. She further announced that the MSC is currently working on other similar sports programmes for different categories of persons in the society.
As for Mrs Gopy, she reiterated the continuous support of QBL towards Mauritian athletes and encouraged the younger generation to avail of the various sports activities being offered to them. She recalled that QBL has always sponsored the various programmes of the MSC to help young people benefit from several sports facilities.
QBL, has been closely linked to sporting causes for almost two decades, and supports the MSC in its approach to encourage young people engage in regular physical and sporting activities, from their youngest age, she added.
QBL has also partnered with the MSC for the swimming programmes: “School swimming”, “Nager C’est Vital” and “Anou Naze” (Rodrigues), she concluded. School Swimming programme
The programme, which is spread over a period of 10 weeks, initially reached some 906 students.
Over the years, the programme has been extended to over 100 schools to reach a total of 233 schools and 9,113 participants, for the school year 2020-2021.
Swimming lessons are taught in five swimming pools across the island, namely: Le Pavillon (Quatre Bornes), Serge Alfred (Beau Bassin), Mare d’Albert, Rivière du Rempart and Souvenir (Calebasses).
