This is a first in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, a temporary swimming pool has recently been installed at the Liernais gymnasium (Côte-d’Or) for the whole summer. For seven weeks, it will welcome the children of the sector with aquatic ease sessions.
A swimming pool that can be assembled in a week and which can be installed in the small towns of Côte-d’Or, this is what the town of Liernais (Côte-d’Or) has just inaugurated. A pool of 10 meters by 5 which is used for children to be comfortable in the water.
The mobile swimming pool settles in Liernais • © guillaume Robin / France Télévisions
For Noémie Roblin, adviser to the Youth and Sport departmental service of Côte-d’Or, this system first of all has an educational purpose. She started from a fairly simple observation: in Côte-d’Or, 1/3 of the population does not have access to a swimming pool less than 20 minutes from their home. The idea sprouted of a swimming pool that could be moved all year round to get as close as possible to the rural population: “oWe took the largest collapsible basin possible, transportable by van.”
The aim of the project is to provide rural areas with a solution to teach children to swim and thus avoid drowning. This is the opportunity for about fifty children per week to have a first contact with water.
Learning to be comfortable in the water is important • © Guillaume Robin / France Télévisions
To learn to swim, this structure remains identical to a traditional public swimming pool. Léna Berthelemot is the lifeguard. For the first sessions, she observed that some children were afraid to enter the pool, but “now they are starting to get more and more comfortable. For the small sections, it’s the first time in a swimming pool, it’s a discovery.”
For Léna, the goal of the project is to raise awareness at an early age to avoid drowning. In France, during the summer of 2021, 1,480 accidental drownings were recorded, a figure down 10% compared to that of the summer of 2018 which amounted to 1,649.
the mobile swimming pool in Liernais in the Côte-d’Or • © guillaume Robin / France Télévisions
These aquatic ease sessions are fun for children • © Guillaume Robin / France Télévisions
Children will no longer need to go to Montbard or Autun to learn to swim. “We have a lot of difficulty teaching our children to swim.” laments Pierre Poillot, President of the Community of communes of the Pays d’Arnay-Liernais. This mobile swimming pool is a real opportunity for him: “It’s a light structure, practical to install. It allows us to offer top-notch equipment for the population.” The structure will remain in Liernais for seven weeks, until August 25.
The next destination is not known. The project has an operating cost of 80,000 euros per year, with community participation of 1,000 euros per week.
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