Left: Balgo Pool Manager Graeme Pollett with local student Ciarna, Kristy Pollett and Emma Borcz; Right: happy Balgo children at the pool
Community cools down thanks to remote pool opening early
While Perth is being battered by cold fronts, one regional town in WA is having an early taste of summer, with record high temperatures prompting the re-opening of the community pool ahead of season.
The opening came about after Year Six student, Ciarna, wrote a letter to Balgo Pool Manager, Graeme Pollet, requesting he open the pool ahead of schedule.
“I think Graeme should open the pool this Saturday because it’s hot and boring without the pool, and we want to have fun,” Ciarna wrote.
“Because it is almost summer the weather is heating up, we need the pool open… to have lots of fun with friends and family.”
After reading Ciarna’s letter, Graeme decided to open the pool that week, sending almost 200 people – half the population of the remote community – flocking to the pool on the 37-degree day.
Now being celebrated as a local hero, Graeme has been running the Balgo pool which is part of Royal Life Saving’s Remote Aboriginal Swimming Pools project, for four years. He says the pool provides many health and social benefits to the community, with Royal Life Saving having a strict ‘no school, no pool’ policy to spark an increase in attendance.
“Leading up to when we opened, the school attendance was around 35 kids that day which is very low,” said Graeme.
“The day we opened the pool up, because of the ‘no school no pool’ policy we had around 90 kids – so we nearly tripled the attendance at school.”
Another focus of the project is boosting locals’ swimming and water safety skills, with Aboriginal children 8.6 times more likely to be involved in a fatal drowning than other children.
As the community dives into the start of the Balgo swimming pool season we look forward to seeing what other achievements this inclusive space invites in the coming months.
Our remote Aboriginal Swimming Pool program is supported by the Department of Communities. To learn more about our Remote Pools, visit the link below.
