Swim For Refugees

Swim for Refugees is a program teaching people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds in Perth, Western Australia to swim. Many people who come to WA seeking shelter and refuge come from places where they’ve never had the opportunity to learn to swim. We couldn’t think of a better way to help welcome them to Perth, get involved with Western Australian culture and our community, and form the critical lifesaving skills of swimming to be able to join in our lifestyle safely, and without fear. On September 17th 2016, the first Swim for Refugees Program was run. Created by UWA Students For Refugees, the programme provided free swimming lessons for refugees ranging from children to adults. The first day, we had fifteen volunteers, but only seven people learning to swim. By the end of the first run of the program, we had over 30 students coming every week to learn to swim. Six years later in 2022, we are a still entirely volunteer run community organisation. We’ve taught over 500 people how to swim, and engaged over 150 volunteers.