2020 has been a challenging year for everyone around the world, and it’s been difficult for WeSwim and our swimmers with disabilities since they had to stop the club’s activities after only 3 swimming sessions.
Celebrating 2020
On a positive note, we’d like to celebrate starting our blog which aims to bring together the disability swimming community and share knowledge and experiences. To date, we have published 13 blogs (plus this one!). If you are a swimmer or a volunteer, you now have keys to practice your swimming at home, but also some techniques for when we get back to the pool (buoyancy, breathing, kicking). We have also raised awareness about disability (guiding visually impaired people, disability access in pools and to get there), heard some great stories from our volunteers (me, Magali) and swimmers (Ramin, Brandon), and celebrated some great sports challenges (swimathon, triathlon).
What else can we do to convince you to join WeSwim next year as a volunteer or swimmer than sharing all these great stories and benefits of swimming for people with disability? Even though we cannot run club swimming sessions, please do reach out if you need support too. And since it’s a festive time, characterised by kindness to others and sharing, why not make a donation to WeSwim this year?
A Word from Our Founders
“Covid19 has highlighted the tiered system people with disabilities face. Added health risks or vulnerability, the impact of being shielded, socio-economic repercussions, greater reliance on services, carers and others. It is not a level playing field and now more than ever, we need to build our communities so that we continue to hear the voices of people who have different experiences to us.
Reading Ramin’s blog about how well he felt going back to swimming was bittersweet. We were thrilled at the difference it made to him but desperately sad that we couldn’t make an impact on more lives in our first year. It has been difficult but we haven’t wanted to take risks we would later regret.
However, we will get there in 2021. With renewed vigour, together we can build that community that gives us all that sense of belonging. Thank you for your continued support and patience.”
Tash & Dan
Thank You and See You Next Year
This is our last blog of 2020, but don’t worry: we will be back in 2021 with more blogs and hopefully swimming sessions with the club. We wish a happy festive season to all our swimmers, volunteers and readers of this blog!
