What We Are Working Toward

The Amin Foundation works on the four pillars named in the family's 2022 statement: water safety education, swimming lessons, creating awareness, and training and equipment for emergency response teams. A fifth thread runs through all of them: support for families after a drowning. Our free website resources are ready today. Programs beyond the website, such as swim-lesson scholarships, are goals we are working toward, and this page says clearly which is which.

1. Water safety education

What we are working toward: every family, school, camp and community group knows the basics of staying safe around water, in words they understand.

No. 1

Free today:

• Guides on 13 topics, each one sourced and dated. Start with water safety at home, pool and hot tub safety, lakes, rivers and open water or water safety by age.
• Interactive tools, such as the family water-safety plan and the home hazard audit. What you type stays in your browser.
• Printable checklists and posters in the resource library.
• Free lesson plans for kindergarten through grade 12 and for parent, community and faith-group workshops, in the lesson plan library. Teachers can start with how to use our lesson plans.
• Kids' games at games.aminfoundation.io, with no accounts, no ads and nothing collected.

2. Swimming lessons

What we are working toward: scholarships for swimming lessons in underserved communities, as the family's statement says. There is no scholarship application on this site yet. When there is, we will announce it on our news page.

• More than half of U.S. adults (54.7%) say they have never taken a swimming lesson (CDC survey, 2023 (opens in a new tab)).
• About one in three Black adults (36.8%) say they cannot swim, compared with 6.9% of White adults (same survey).
• The American Academy of Pediatrics says many children can start lessons at age 1, depending on readiness (opens in a new tab), and that lessons don't make a child “drown proof.” Close supervision is still needed.

Free today:

• How to find swim lessons through official locators such as the YMCA and the American Red Cross, plus the swim lesson finder.
• Free and low-cost swim lessons in New York City.
• Swim lessons for adults, because it is never too late to learn, and swimming with modesty for families who need modest swimwear or private sessions.

3. Creating awareness

What we are working toward: water safety talked about at home, in schools, at the masjid, temple or church, and at community centers, especially in desi and other minority communities.

• About 300,000 people die from drowning worldwide each year (WHO fact sheet, 2026 (opens in a new tab)).
• In the U.S., among people under 30, Black people drown at 1.5 times the rate of White people (CDC, 1999-2019 data (opens in a new tab)).
• CDC's national swimming survey gives no separate figure for South Asian Americans. We won't guess at one. We write for these families directly instead.

Free today:

• Infographics you can print, share or embed on your own website, each with its sources.
• Water safety for desi communities and why drowning rates differ between communities.
• Toolkits for schools, camps and faith communities in community water safety. World Drowning Prevention Day, on July 25 each year, is a good moment to share them (WHO (opens in a new tab)).

4. Training and equipment for emergency responders

What we are working toward: In the family's statement, this pillar is raising funds for training and equipment for emergency response teams. This website does not ask for or accept money. For now, our part is to explain what water rescue takes and to point departments and communities to official training standards and grant programs.

• Standards exist. NFPA 1006 sets the minimum job performance requirements for responders who do technical rescue (NFPA (opens in a new tab)). NFPA 2500 now combines the older technical rescue standards, including NFPA 1670 (NFPA (opens in a new tab)).
• Federal grants can help. FEMA's Assistance to Firefighters Grants (opens in a new tab) help fire departments, nonaffiliated EMS organizations and state fire training academies pay for equipment, protective gear, vehicles and training.
• Bystanders matter too. Safe, simple rescue means reaching or throwing a flotation aid from the edge without getting in (opens in a new tab). And CPR skills can save a life in the time it takes paramedics to arrive (opens in a new tab).

Free today: Reach or throw, don't go, where to learn CPR, and what water rescue teams need.

5. Support for families after a drowning

What we are working toward: “emotional support to families dealing with drowning-related loss,” in the words of the family's statement. That includes brothers and sisters, who need support of their own.

• About 1 in 11 U.S. children will have a parent or sibling die by age 18 (Judi's House/JAG Institute, 2026 estimate (opens in a new tab)).

Free today:

• Grief after a drowning and losing a sibling.
• Free grief support for families, children and siblings, and the grief support navigator.
• Siblings: Bonds That Last, for keeping brothers and sisters close.

How we decide what to build next

We start with what helps families most: the hazards that cause the most harm, the questions people ask most, and the gaps where little good information exists. We publish a guide only when every fact in it can be traced to a source. If there is something you need that you can't find here, tell us.

What you can do today

• Pick one resource and use it: make your family water-safety plan or print a checklist.
• Teach one class. Choose a free lesson plan for your classroom, camp or community group.
• Share one infographic with a parents' group, a school newsletter or your place of worship.
• Help us do more. Volunteer, partner with us or host a workshop: see how to get involved.