To compensate for the lack of municipal swimming pools in France, Jean-François Buisson has created a swimming pool on wheels. She travels all over the country to teach swimming to children.
“Augustin, don’t forget, you have to watch your feet!” »
The situation is serious. After four intensive days of learning to swim, the children of the Nucourt school, in the Paris region, pass the diving assessment. Like all French children, they are expected to know how to swim before entering college – usually at age 11. But they almost missed it. In and around their city, no swimming pool on the horizon. It is therefore in a truck that they take their swimming exam. The semi-trailer stamped Aqwa Itineris traveled all over France to get here. Inside, a small swimming pool, changing rooms, toilets.
A real swimming pool on wheels.
IMAGE FROM AQWAITINERIS.FR
Children bathe in the “aquatic classroom”.
The only swimming pool in the community of communes, Vexin Centre, a grouping of 34 towns, was destroyed by the 1999 storms, which killed 92 people in France, explains Elizabeth Dufour, administrative manager of the community. “Before, some schools had time slots in more distant cities, but now, not at all. It’s expensive. The principle of a mobile swimming pool was exactly what Nucourt and the surrounding towns needed. The truck settles in a village for a few weeks, and the intensive swimming lessons can begin.
The concept was born 12 years ago in the mind of Jean-François Buisson. A former humanitarian in Morocco, he often had to teach his rescuers to swim. For this, he recycled a concept invented by his own father in the 1950s: the adjustable floor. “It’s a learning method that allows you to know how to swim in three sessions”, assures the native of Lyon, who now resides in Switzerland.
IMAGE FROM AQWAITINERIS.FR
Jean-François Buisson, founder of Aqwa Itineris
One can start with three centimeters of water to combat the fear of water while being in a horizontal position. Little by little, the floor is lowered to reach a depth of 1.30 m.
Jean-François Buisson, founder of Aqwa Itineris
By transporting his father’s idea into a semi-trailer, Jean-François Buisson has created an “aquatic classroom” of which he is very proud.
Financial and ecological chasms
With its 4,135 swimming pools and 6,412 swimming pools, in 2017 France had one pool for every 10,000 inhabitants. But their distribution poses a problem. Real financial – and ecological – chasms, they are not well maintained and can only accommodate a part of all the children who need to be trained in swimming. “There are not thirty-six thousand solutions: either we build a swimming pool, or we take one on wheels which stays for a few weeks and comes back the following year”, analyzes the founder of Aqwa Itineris.
Since then, the mobile pools of Aqwa Itineris – for the moment the only one present on the truck-pool market – criss-cross France all year round. In Nucourt, Elizabeth Dufour explains that several questions had to be answered before the truck could be installed. “It has to be connected to electricity, to be able to evacuate the chlorinated water, and you can’t do it anyhow, and you have to be able to fill the basin. Here, for lack of other possibilities, we did it with a garden hose! »
Parked on land owned by the community, the truck uses 1,200 liters of water per day. Far from the hundreds of thousands necessary for the proper functioning of a municipal swimming pool with several swimming lanes.
IMAGE FROM AQWAITINERIS.FR
The Aqwa Itineris truck uses 1,200 liters of water per day, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands required for the proper functioning of a municipal swimming pool.
Inside, warm, chlorinated air greets us. Two lifeguards – one works very regularly with Aqwa Itineris and follows the truck all over France, the other comes from the neighboring community – are busy getting five children to swim.
Sandrine Valter, a mother, chose to be a companion for this swimming session. The phone in hand to film her offspring, she says “love the device”. “It’s ingenious! The bottom lowers or raises. The water is rather warm. And above all, it allows children to learn to swim in rural villages. “Great project! “, she says to Jean-François Buisson, who comes to ensure the proper functioning of the machine.
“Beneficial” for children
Sandrine Valter had already taken the lead with her children and had enrolled them in swimming lessons last summer, on vacation. “But not everyone has the means to do that, so it’s very good that it’s organized with the school,” she says. Christelle Gueribout, the second guide of the day, shares this opinion. “My children were doing well before doing the pool session here, but they have improved a lot. It is beneficial for them. »
If the pool on wheels only travels for the moment in France, nothing would prevent it from crossing borders. “At the very beginning, we tested it in Evolène, Switzerland, at an altitude of 1,300 metres. It was working very well! Inside, it was hot and on the roof, a layer of ice several centimeters thick had formed, I had to break it by hand before leaving,” recalls Jean-François Buisson.
Since then, the walls of the truck have adapted. Thicker for departments where it is cold, thinner when the climate is mild. This could make people want mobile pools in Quebec.