Learning to swim will end with trip to Bahamas for these Springfield youths

SPRINGFIELD — For the past year and a half, Kaylanny Torres has spent her Tuesday evenings at community pools ran by Springfield Public Schools learning how to swim, not simply to be safe around water or to spend a summer afternoon at a local pool, but to eventually scuba dive.

Kaylanny said before taking the classes, she just floated around in the pool or beach. Now, the 11-year-old has learned to dive and swim the entirety of the pool.

And she’d not done. If they gain enough skill in the water, the 15 students between the ages 10-12 that make up the Inner-City Youth Scuba Diving Team in Springfield are preparing to travel to the Bahamas in August 2024 where they’ll don tanks and masks and witness marine wildlife in their native habitat.

“It is cool to say that I know how to swim, and I am excited to go on the Bahamas trip,” Kaylanny said.

Before taking the class, a third of the group did not know how to swim. The students are becoming proficient swimmers and divers in two phases.

In the first phase, swimmers worked to earn certificates showing their swimming proficiency. Swimmers earned certification to show they are able to tread water, hold their breath and swim laps around the pool.

Kim Lavallee, executive director of aquatics at the YMCA of Greater Springfield, said it is important that youngsters learn to swim because they want to follow their friends into the water and that is when the trouble can happen.

While people can learn to swim at any age, sometimes not being able to swim creates a stigma and discourages parents from teaching their children how to swim, and that can become a generational trait, she said.

Lavallee said the dive team has already made progress in learning fundamentals like floating, how to move their arms and legs, the different pressures down below, learning to breathe with tanks and how to use a snorkel, she said.

Dive team organizers Christopher M. Sutton and Michelle Norman partnered with Springfield School Volunteers, Enfield Scuba and Watersports and the YMCA to make the expedition a reality for students.

Sutton is an educator and a certified deep diver who has dived in the Bahamas in the past. He has participated in shark feeding and diving expeditions where he recovered a 2 million-year-old megalodon tooth.

Sutton said being a diver opens swimmers up to life and career-changing experiences. The program exposes inner-city kids to culture and careers in aquatics, he said.

The young divers will be able to see ocean life like seahorses, eels, clownfish, sea turtles and coral up close, and have stories to tell their friends, Sutton said.

The goal is to create strong swimmers, avid divers and give the students pathways to go out, get their degree and then come back to the region and be dive instructors, he said.

The second phase of the expedition will begin when the dive team arrives in the Bahamas, said Norman.

“The dive team will be going on a coral reef dive. They will be tethered to an adult diver from the dive team in the Bahamas and will go about 30 feet down. Those that have not gained a certificate in diving will stay on top and snorkel,” Norman said.

The students will also learn about the culture of the Bahamas during the trip. Divers will journal daily keeping notes about the expedition and create a final report, Norman said.

The youth dive team is a unique program and experience to the region said, John Glynn, from Enfield Scuba and Watersports.

Glynn said from a conservation standpoint his team would like to make young divers aware of what is happening in the environment and to visualize the work being done around conservation. Enfield Scuba is providing the team with the dive equipment for the trip in the Bahamas.

Keston Edwards’ sons, Josziah,11 and Nyzaiah,10, are on the dive team. Besides being an opportunity to do something they’ve never done before, Edwards said this program will help his kids in their future because with a certification in swimming, they could also become summer lifeguards.

Jezari Capdeville, 9, and his brother Jeyceir, 11, both have their eyes set on careers in the water, said their mother, Shenell Ford.

“My oldest wants to study marine biology and for him to have the opportunity like this expands his mind. I want to see where this can take him. The youngest wants to be an engineer and he is looking forward to understanding how to create things that can be used underwater. He has connected diving to the movie “Black Panther,” and I see endless opportunities in his path as well,” Ford said.

Jezari said he is excited to dive.

“I get to explore the ocean as a kid. I get to have fun and a great experience at the same time,” he said.

Ford said her sons are beginning to swim with more ease, it has been a humbling experience to bear witness to. “I am a proud mama, she said.

This post was originally published on this site