“We didn’t get paid for it during that time, it was just the love of the sport,” he said As it happens guest Robyn Bresnahan. Borlandoe, now 70 and a grandmother of six, decided to come out of retirement and go through the certification process to help with the ongoing lifeguard shortage in her hometown of Philadelphia. “Last year I wasn’t ready because I had to train and then I heard about it [the shortage] this year and I decided to do it,” he said. “And the training is very, very intense.”
Lifeguard shortage in the US and Canada
According tothe Philadelphia Inquireronly 50 of Philadelphia’s 65 pools are open this summer due to a lack of lifeguards and swim instructors. A similar problem exists in the USA and Canada: in Ottawa and St. John’sswimming lessons were canceled and pool capacity reduced this month, with city officials citing lifeguard shortages as the main reason. Nova Scotia and P.E.I struggled to fill lifeguard vacancies to oversee many of the East Coast beaches. There is a shortage of lifeguards and swimming instructors across Canada and the US, according to the Lifesaving Society. (Christian Milette/Radio-Canada) Barbara Byers, director of public education at the Lifesaving Society of Canada, said the current lifeguard shortage is fueled by a number of factors, including low wages, incorrect certification and higher-paying opportunities in other industries. “In some municipalities, some pools are open, not all pools. Some pools are open for limited hours. Some beaches don’t have lifeguards that they would normally have, some with fewer hours and fewer days,” Byers told As It Happens on the phone . interview. “A lot of municipalities reach out to other groups for potential candidates. They approach people who maybe were lifeguards back in the day and moved to another field or maybe took time off and had kids and get them to come back and reconfirm.” For Borlandoe, returning to work as a lifeguard is also about keeping children safe and away from violence. More than 100 children under the age of 18 have been shot in Philadelphia this year, and 24 of them have died. Borlandoe said three young men were killed in her neighborhood last year. “Our children have no future. They are being killed. They are killing each other,” he said. “And this was just a small way for me to do something to help, to keep kids off the block.” He said that in addition to giving young people a place to hang out, keeping public pools open year-round can also help train future lifeguards and prevent shortages. “You just protect these kids and let them see that they have something else out here. There are opportunities for them, but they have to open the pools.” Meanwhile, Borlandoe is doing what it can to keep the pool open. “I always tell my kids: go out there and make a statement no matter what. So no matter how old you are, if you want to do it, don’t give up.” Written by Olsy Sorokina. Interview with Robin Borlandoe produced by Tayo Bero.
