Muslims in Vantaa to be given swimming lessons behind closed curtains

Swimming skills will help immigrants and their children to integrate into the Finnish culture, says Vantaa’s Sports Director

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The Martinlaakso swimming pool in Vantaa will begin swimming lessons for Muslims next spring.
      For this purpose, the hall’s windows have been covered with curtains. The swimming classes have been organised by swimming clubs and by the Muslims’ own organisations.
      The underlying factor behind the swimming schools is the fact that in Vantaa many Muslim pupils have not wanted to attend swimming lessons in schools because of their religion. Moreover, the parents of Islamic children have forbidden their children from attending swimming classes arranged at school.
     
According to Veli-Matti Kallislahti, Sports Director of the City of Vantaa, swimming skills are part and parcel of the Finnish national culture, and learning how to swim will help immigrants integrate into Finland, quite apart from possibly saving their lives.
      ”I could imagine that the Muslim girls now attending swimming classes behind the curtains and learning how to swim could in 15 years from now perhaps be taking their own children to regular swimming classes in schools”, Kallislahti notes on the integration aspect of the project.
     
The Islamic tradition and the holy book Quran take a strict attitude toward nudity. According to the Quran, for example a woman should not expose any part of her body except her face and hands while in public.
      According to theologian Ari Hukari, who has studied Islam, nudity is a taboo even between Muslim men.
      ”The Finnish sauna culture is a great shock to many Muslims”, Hukari notes.
      Hukari regards the practice in the Martinlaakso swimming pool as a good solution, believing that it will help the next Muslim generations to integrate into the Finnish culture.
     
The City of Vantaa’s sports services have been contacted by a large number of critical citizens saying that the Muslims’ own swimming periods will actually be a means of separating cultures rather than connecting them.
      ”We will have to view this from a larger perspective. The lack of swimming skills is one of the factors segregating people from society. If one knows how to swim, he or she can take up hobbies that are typical of Finnish life, like going to the beach”, Sports Director Kallislahti argues.
      The project is related to an immigrant-targeted campaign of "Sports For All" in Vantaa’s integration exercise programme.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  All nationalities welcome during “Muslims-only” hours at Helsinki public swimming pools (22.6.2009)

See also:
  How soon will immigrants assimilate into the mainstream? (8.2.2011)

Links:
  Vantaa: Immigrants
  Islam in Finland (Wikipedia)

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