Tran Thi Kim Thia has been teaching children how to swim for roughly 20 years

Tran Thi Kim Thia, also known as Sau Thia, resides in Hamlet 4 of Hung Thanh commune in Thap Muoi district. She has been teaching young people how to swim for roughly 20 years in order to enable them to survive in the event of a flood.

The swimming project started in Thia's commune in 2002. At first, Thia was concerned as she didn't know the best way to teach children. However, after talking with an official from the communal women's union, she made use of a net and small trees as a means of creating a small pool within a nearby river.

Thia teaches 3,800 children how to swim

Each session typically lasts from one to two hours over the course of 15 days. Thia often teaches the children how to swim about a month before the arrival of the flooding season. At the end of the course, she hosts a 15-metre swimming contest as part of the final exam. 

Initially it had been a challenge to persuade local children to take the swimming classes. Indeed, communal authorities had to give each child 20,000 VND (less than 1 USD) to attend the classes, whilst Thia had to persuade and convince parents about her ability. She insisted that they wouldn't have to stay at home to look after their children if they learnt how to swim.

So far she has been able to teach about 3.800 children how to swim for free.

When not teaching the children, Thia usually sells lotto tickets for VND100,000, equal to 4.4 USD, a day.