Press releases

“Being able to swim is simply incredibly important. We can prevent such swimming accidents—which, unfortunately, occur time and again—by teaching our children to be safe in the water,” says City Region Councilor Dr. Tim Grüttemeier at the launch of the 2026/2027 Swimming Initiative at the Aachen-Brand Indoor Swimming Pool. “This is where I learned to swim back then, and where I taught my children as well,” says Aachen’s Mayor Dr. Michael Ziemons. He emphasizes that providing swimming instruction across the board is a generational task for parents, clubs, and schools. With the “Swimming Initiative,” strong partners in the Aachen Urban Region are once again pooling their expertise and resources—for the third time. The shared goal: every child should learn to swim and be able to move safely in the water—regardless of individual abilities or social and family circumstances.

“There are schools where nearly all children can swim even without our initiative. But many schools simply no longer have trained teachers or don’t have the necessary pool time. On top of that, some parents have no connection to swimming, and that leads to an imbalance in the Aachen Metropolitan Region. In the interest of educational equity, the swimming initiative is a very important project,” explains Markus Terodde, head of the Department of Education for the Aachen Metropolitan Region. To this end, the Aachen Urban Region, its ten municipalities, the school board, the School Sports Committee for the Aachen Urban Region, the Higher School Supervisory Authority (Cologne District Government), RegioSportBund and StadtSportbund, the schools, and the Aachen Urban Region’s Education Office are all working together. The guiding principles are early support, socially equitable access, reliable cooperation, and continuous quality assurance.

At the heart of the swimming initiative are the school swimming weeks, in which approximately 2,000 children from about 70 schools in the Aachen City Region are expected to participate. These are primarily fourth-graders. The needs of the schools and municipalities are the deciding factor. During the school swimming weeks in all ten municipalities within the Aachen metropolitan region, the children selected by the schools will receive one hour of swimming instruction daily for one week, in addition to their regular swimming lessons.

“Another key aspect of the swimming initiative is the expansion of continuing education and professional development opportunities for teachers,” explains Johannes-Elmar Kugel of the Cologne District Government. Under their leadership, nearly 40 teachers received additional training in swimming instruction during the 2024–25 school year, and another 24 during the 2025–26 school year. Meanwhile, the City Sports Association and RegioSportBund trained “swimming assistants” to provide educational support to elementary school students. They assist teachers in swimming lessons. Since 2024, the city-wide “pool” of assistants—which schools can access through the sports associations—has been growing. “What I like best is that the municipalities work so well together across the board and that all the children who participate benefit from this positive experience,” said Maximilian Mansuroglu of the RegioSportbund. “By participating, the children also become more resilient in their daily lives, gain self-confidence, and develop a positive outlook on other areas of life,” confirmed Nadine Frey of the Aachen City Sports Association.

The current school swimming weeks run from September 2026 through spring 2027. They are funded by the NRW Ministry of Education (with up to 20,000 euros) and the Aachen Metropolitan Region (with up to 80,000 euros from its budget).

Press Release from the Aachen Urban Region