MEOW MEOW PRESIDENT DOUG FORBES AUTHORS MULTIMEDIA INVESTIGATIVE SERIES ON CHILDHOOD DROWNING
Meow Meow Foundation President Doug Forbes had just completed his second full semester in a Harvard master’s program for journalism when he received a call that forever changed his life.
His beloved 6-year-old daughter Roxie drowned at Summerkids camp pool due to grossly negligent act by the camp operating family, according to volumes of legal documents and evidence.
Forbes decided to withdraw from his summer semester. Within a week, however, he found himself back before a computer screen furiously investigating how his daughter could have drowned. This effort opened a much larger door to the overall quandary of childhood drowning.
Not only did Forbes discover that the recreational child care facility where his daughter drowned had orchestrated a fraudulent lifeguard certification scheme, according to documents, evidence and admissions, he also successfully convinced the American Red Cross to withdraw all facility certifications and ban facility owners from training and certifying staff. He is currently demanding that the Red Cross make sweeping changes that would eliminate systemic oversight gaps, even if it requires him to engage in a legal battle.
Forbes returned to Harvard in the fall after his daughter Roxie’s horrific death. He thereafter focused on investigative work related to the drowning prevention world. He officially graduates Summa Cum Laude in March and hopes to walk on Harvard Square in May.
His capstone project is an intensive 5-part multimedia report on childhood drowning, inclusive of interviews with aquatics experts, doctors, government agencies, NGOs and other stakeholders across the globe. Harvard University awarded him The Director’s Prize for Best Capstone.
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