World Drowning Prevention Day: July 25, 2024
World Drowning Prevention Day - July 25 Annually
On April 28, 2021, The United Nations General Assembly adopted a historic resolution on global drowning prevention. The resolution recognizes the scale and impact of drowning prevention and calls for coordinated action to prevent drowning, a leading cause of injury-related death and disability worldwide.
A key element that resulted from this resolution is UN-recognized World Drowning Prevention Day. This will occur annually on July 25. All Stakeholders and their partners are invited and encouraged to contribute to and engage in this global activity. This day is for raising awareness of the importance of drowning prevention and the need for urgent action as a collective to improve water safety and reduce preventable deaths and injury.
In 2022 the World Health Organization issued a call for people to "Do One Thing" to help prevent drowning. This "One Thing" could be as simple as taking swimming lessons, putting on a lifejacket, or wearing blue on World Drowning Prevention Day. In 2023, the WHO extended their messaging to include "Improve One Thing" and "Add One Thing."
This year, we at the Lifesaving Society hope to continue doing all three:
- Do One Thing: Our team will be wearing blue on July 25th.
- Improve One Thing: After the pandemic made it difficult to attend events in person, our goal is to extend our drowning prevention and public education messages through greater public outreach. We have already spent many days on the road this summer sharing our Water Smart® tips.
- Add One Thing: We know we cannot do this alone. We are working towards creating and fostering collaboration and partnerships in drowning prevention to better reach our vision: a Canada free from drowning.