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Barbara Enckels

Barbara Enckels

Sports Projects Coordinator (Coördinator sportprojecten) at the City of Mechelen (Stad Mechelen), Belgium, involved in the WATSUPS urban water project.

Sep 1, 2026

16:44
You have a lot of waterways, but tell us about that.
16:48
Indeed, there's a lot of water, but it's forbidden at most places.
16:53
So we don't have...
16:55
the habit of going to swim in open water from a young age with families with parents so we don't learn it from from small children it's more like a habit when we're going on holidays or something like that then we go to the sea and we go to the swimming pool but not an everyday in everyday life we don't go and swim in open water so Ann already said something about it.
17:26
We don't have the habit, so we don't have a swimming culture, so also the safety instructions, the things that we have to take into account, we're not used to it, like water quality, the weather, the conditions, also the visibility in the water, the current of the water.
17:45
We don't have the experience with it, so we have to work on that if we want to use the water more in the future.
17:54
Then it's important that people are used to go into the water and have the experience on what things that you have to take into account.
18:25
But tell us a little bit, what do you do here to create this social awareness or to train people or to kind of bring them closer to the water?

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