Swimming pool for Galle community

Sarath MALALASEKERA

A swimming pool for the community in Galle was opened by former Sri Lanka swimmer Julian Bolling opposite the Galle Light House recently.

This Light House Community Pool is open now for the exclusive use in the day hours for schoolchildren free of charge. It also conducts programmes for others after three in the afternoon to teach others in the community how to swim.

Christina Fonce has a day for girls and women only, while many other opportunities of roping in the community to enjoy and benefit from this valuable facility are being forever sought so that the very purpose for which this pool was built would be achieved.

The Light House Community Pool by SOS Velsen, Adopt Sri Lanka and Jetwings Lighthouse is a tribute to those who lost their lives during the devastating tsunami of 2004, said Netherlands Alumni Association of Lanka (NAAL) President S. P. C. Kumarasinghe.

The NAAL President Kumarasinghe said that he represents twinning project between the City of Velsen (SOS Velsen) in Netherlands and Galle. During fund raising in Velsen the Van der Horst family donated money to build a swimming pool in Galle in memory of their son Roy M. Van der Horst.

The NAAL President emphasised that all those who benefit from this swimming pool must remember and respect those who lost their lives and their loved ones.

The funds to build the Swimming Pool in Galle from Adopt Sri Lanka and SOS Velsen, the technical know how from Swim Lanka and Christina Fonce and the land, the construction and the continued maintenance and sustaining of the pool, the coaches and the facility itself by Jetwing Lighthouse.

The design and the architecture in keeping with the hotel was a contribution by Channa Daswatta, a prodigy of the legendary Geoffrey Bawa. A training pool to give closer attention to the small-children has also been made available, the NAAL President said.

It was a common belief and truth if more people in the country had learnt to or had known to swim, less would have lost their lives. even though surrounded by the sea, swimming was not necessarily an everyday chore that many would indulge in.

Four entities with one common goal teamed up soon after to decide that they had to do something for the future generations. Swim Lanka headed by Julian Bolling, a former Olympic Swimmer had the expertise and technical know how to get such a programme going to teach the village children and adults alike to swim.

Geoffrey Dobbs of Adopt Sri Lanka, a survivor of the tsunami himself, had the funds and the determination through his donors to contribute towards a sustainable project that would benefit the community as well as pay tribute to those were no longer in our midst.

A trust set up between the four entities would manage this facility and are confident and certain that the number who benefit from its existence would grow from year to year, the NAAL President added.