Biometrics - Buro Jansen & Janssen

5.2 De Fakkel
Swimming Culture
The Netherlands is known for its swimming culture. People go to the swimming pool for
fun and for sports. In the Netherlands children learn swimming at an early age. There are
about 700 public swimming pools in the Netherlands. The Ministry of Housing, Spatial
Planning and Environment has laws regarding hygiene and safety in swimming pools. The
rules regarding hygiene are usually related to quality of the water, showers and toilets in
the pool. Safety is concerned with supervision by bath superintendents, but also for
example about the floor texture [VROM, April, 2007].
There are special rules in the Netherlands regarding supervision at swimming pools.
During opening times at least one person has to have a constant watch over the pool. The
supervisor has to have a good overview on the pool [Senter Novem, April, 2007]. The
superintendent has to assess how many pool supervisors are required based on experience
and expectation patterns, such as which visitors come at what timings and what activity is
going on at the swimming pool. With type of visitor is meant: age, physical condition,
mental capacities, skills, social level and familiarity with the situation. Accordingly one
decides how many superintendents should supervise at the pool or maybe limit the amount
of pool visitors if there aren’t enough supervisors available. If there are just a few
swimmers, supervision can be exercised in intervals.
Supervision has to meet certain qualitative and quantitative requirements. For example
extra observation can be required when there are:
• Big crowds.
• Young visitors between 6‐18 years old [e.g. at birthday parties].
• Noisy, reckless or disobedient visitors present.
• Visitors with medical problems, like eye‐ and ear disabilities, epilepsy, people
using heavy medicines, mentally challenged and invalid people.
• Visitors who don’t have adequate knowledge of the spoken and/or written Dutch
language [e.g. asylum seekers and immigrants].
• Visitors who are not familiar with the swimming pool.
• Extra deep pools, pool waves, diving boards, slides and rapids etcetera in use.
• Glare which causes the water surface to sparkle.
• Fixed and floating objects for fun.
Ridderkerk
Ridderkerk is a municipality in Zuid‐Holland [province in the south of the Netherlands],
close to Rotterdam. It has 44757 inhabitants [from CBS statline, 2006 ]. There are in total
2698 non‐Western immigrants, which is 6% of the total population. 1.3% of the population
is from Turkish decent, 1.1% is from Surinam, 0.6% is from Morocco and 0.5% is from the
Dutch Antilles. The remaining 2.5% is from other non‐western countries.
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