In the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Maldives has more than a thousand islands, a country whose territory is made up of 99% water but where only a small part of the inhabitants can swim, and mainly men. Because the numbers say it: at 16, only 10% of girls in the Maldives can swim. A statistic that pushed Aminath Zuna, passionate about diving, to create her swimming school, with training specifically for teenage girls, and women in general, to break down this barrier that wants swimming to be, she says, “a boy’s activity, dangerous, and definitely not made for girls“.
>> Maldives: the archipelago could disappear by 2100
She explains that there is also the idea rooted in society that girls should not show their bodies, not attract attention, and then protect themselves physically from the ravages of salt, from the sun which tans the skin. .. To counter all these stereotypes, with another swimmer, Flossy Barraud, Aminath Zuna launched the “Ocean Women” program, which she co-directs and details in the British daily The Guardian why it is much more than a matter of gender equality.
Starting with the obvious: on a string of islands like the Maldives, where the population lives just one meter above sea level, knowing how to swim is essential for survival. It is all the more so with the multiplication of episodes of intense rains, floods and the inevitable rise of the ocean which, if nothing is done by then, will engulf the country in 2100.
Protecting ocean heritage
So there is survival, swimming so as not to perish, and then there is swimming to see, to know one’s heritage, everything that lies below the surface, this immense world, teeming with life, fish, corals, these marvels that attract thousands of tourists every year and that the vast majority of women in the archipelago have never seen. Hence Aminath Zuna’s approach to help all those who wish to overcome their fears, put on a mask and dive.
This is what his father taught him from an early age, to swim, to manage his breathing, to master this element. She liked it so much that she then trained her cousins, then her children, and now her students. “Because in life she sayswe only protect what we love, and to love, we must know“, like this reef to defend it from pollution, overfishing, over-tourism and to try to preserve this heritage in danger.