In Thattekad, Kannur, you will find an elderly woman, dressed in a ‘maxi’, diving into a pond like a professional. She then proceeds to swim with much elan as villagers look on. Janaki Amma is nothing short of an inspiration in her village.
The 63-year-old teaches swimming to hundreds of children and women daily, for free. An avid swimmer, she realised the need for swimming lessons after the alarming number of drowning deaths in Kerala.
“Every day, we see reports of boat accidents and children drowning to death. That’s the reason I started this,” she shares.
A report in The Hindu states that drowning claimed 6,710 lives in Kerala from 2016 to 2021. To prevent any more lives from being lost due to the lack of swimming knowledge, Janaki Amma started her swimming lessons 11 years ago.
She teaches around 100 people through her morning and evening swimming classes at 11 am and 4 pm respectively, helping them overcome their water phobia. “The younger generation should be able to help those in need, especially during accidents,” she adds.
Janaki Amma is breaking the myth that one cannot learn swimming after a certain age by teaching women of diverse ages, who finish their daily chores and look forward to attending her classes and learning how to swim.
Supported by her family, she wants to help as many people for as long as she can, with this important life skill. “I will keep doing this as long as I am healthy. Life is impossible to foresee,” she says.
Edited by Pranita Bhat
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