Over 110 kids and youth from a Horn of Africa or CALD background attended HARDA’s annual
Swim, Survive and Socialize program, sponsored by Dooleys Catholic Club. The program was held at ASTA in Seven Hills and catered for all levels from beginner to advanced, with 45 min classes every weekday from Jan 11th – 22nd. While extra precautions because of covid were taken, it didn’t detract from the fun had by all and the great progress everyone made in their swimming & water safety skills. We were v pleased that in this difficult year this was one program that was able to go ahead and everyone really enjoyed it. The smiles on the faces made it all worthwhile.
HARDA is very excited to report that this year we have achieved one of our long held goals in our quest to increase community water safety capacity. One of the swim instructors teaching in this year’s program was a young lady with a South Sudanese background. She participated in the HARDA Swim Program when she was she was younger and did her Bronze Medallion and her Instructors course through it. She is now working as an instructor at ASTA while she completes her studies. We are hopefully that over the next couple of years we will have more swim instructors from our communities, in part because of her inspiration.
