One of the 10 leading causes of death for people under the age of 24 in all parts of the world is drowning. A large number of drowning cases can be avoided, and one of the ways to reduce the risk of drowning is to increase swimming skills through non-swimmer training/education programs. The teaching of non-swimmers can start from infancy and is most often carried out in elementary schools as an extracurricular activity. Although some schools offer the possibility of teaching non-swimmers, some schools, especially in rural areas, are not able to do it due to the lack of availability of public swimming pools. Numerous studies indicate the existence of differences in physical activity between children from urban areas and children from rural areas, but the area of differences in swimming motor skills between them has not yet been investigated. The aim of this thesis is to determine possible differences in the motor skills of swimming between children who come from urban areas and children who come from rural areas, whether there is a difference in the initial and final states of swimming skills and whether there are differences between the initial and final states after the implementation of the non-swimmer training program. The research was conducted on a sample of 462 students in the 5th and 6th grades of elementary schools in the Osijek-Baranja County. The results indicate a statistically significant difference in the number of swimmers and non-swimmers between children from urban and rural areas with an error of p=0.00. A statistically significant difference in the initial knowledge of swimming between urban and rural children was also determined with an error of p=00, while there is no statistically significant difference in the final states of knowledge of swimming. A statistically significant difference was determined through the t-test for dependent samples in the difference between the initial and final states in both urban and rural children. Based on the results, parents are encouraged to include their children in teaching programs for non-swimmers so that the children learn to swim in time and thus reduce the risk of drowning and positively influence their health status, which can be influenced by swimming.