The WaterStrong Initiative

The WaterStrong mission is to save lives and heal the planet, destroying barriers along the way.

WaterStrong is a non-profit organization that delivers water safety, swimming, and environmental education to underserved children and their families. Since 2020 WaterStrong with our partners has been delivering free Eco-Swim clinics in the Portland metro region in community pools and public waterside parks. Check out our WaterStrong 2023 Year in Review: Check out our 2023 year in review: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2h26vBbuRvzDePHB8

WaterStrong Method & Eco-Swim Clinics

The WaterStrong Method is a unique curriculum that combines environmental education with water safety and swimming. Clinics are tailored for children and their families who live in the local community and do not have access to swimming lessons and/or environmental education. WaterStrong Method learning objectives include highly accessible environmental education, water safety, and survival swim skills. Target audiences include low-income, black, brown, immigrant and refugee, and indigenous persons. The goal of an Eco-Swim Clinic is for every participant to learn life-saving skills in a single day, destroying barriers along the way.

Fundamental life skills

Learning to swim is a fundamental life skill. Not only does it build confidence in one’s physical abilities, but it establishes an indelible connection between a person’s survival in the water and their appreciation for aquatic ecosystems. Understanding the natural environment is critical to our survival on Earth. We must learn how the water cycle functions, appreciate watershed dynamics, follow the causes and effects of climate change, and develop the skills and awareness to reverse the self-destructive habits that are killing our planet. These skills will make the difference between life and death. 

Intricately connected to our waters.

With over 380,000 deaths per year, drowning is the third leading cause of accidental injury death in the world, with low-income children at greatest risk. Yet drowning deaths are nearly always preventable: we can make a difference. 

Every day, 2 million tons of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are discharged into the world’s water, the equivalent of the weight of the entire human population of 6.8 billion people. The UN estimates that the amount of wastewater produced annually is about 1,500 cubic kilometers, six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world. Worldwide, infectious diseases such as waterborne diseases are the number one killer of children under five years old and more people die from unsafe water annually than from all forms of violence, including war. 

At less than .025% of the world’s waters, our world’s freshwater resources are in crisis. Nearly every body of open water is threatened by contamination, overfishing, water shortages, or climate change impacts. As a global community we have a duty to conserve, protect and clean up our oceans, rivers and lakes. 

WaterStrong goes where we’re invited.  

We work closely with community partners to tailor our Eco-Swim programs to the water safety and environmental concerns of the location where the project takes place so that participants learn about the waters closest to their own homes.