How Olympic swimmer Alice Dearing is making swimming accessible for all
Alice Dearing has already made history in her own right.
The 25-year-old, of Ghanaian and English heritage, was the first black female swimmer to represent Team GB at an Olympics.
She is also the second black swimmer to represent the country competitively, following in the strokes of Achieng Ajulu-Bushell.
She was crowned Junior Open Water champion in 2016 and has swam at the Olympics, World Championships and European Championships.
Dearing, who has made waves both in and out the pool, also works to change the future of swimming.
People of African, Caribbean and Asian heritage have historically been ‘precluded’ from the world of aquatics, which leads not only to a lack of representation on the global sporting stage, but also to serious danger.
According to the World Health Organisation, the risk of drowning is higher amongst minority ethnic communities.
Around 95% of black adults and 80% of black children do not swim in England, and one in four children who complete their primary education are unable to swim.
Dearing helped launch the Black Swimming Association (BSA) in 2020 to change that.
The organisation challenges the negative stigma perceived around ethnic minorities and water and works both to prevent tragedy and foster success.
Alice told Metro.co.uk: ‘We initially started out on a WhatsApp group chat just talking about everything that we had experienced in swimming coming from our very different backgrounds.
‘I was an elite swimmer, Seren [Jones, a fellow co-founder of BSA] was a former elite swimmer, one of the other co-founders was just learning to swim at the time, and another is a parent to children with afro Caribbean hair, and she would struggle to find caps and headgear suitable to be able to swim in.
‘We were all just fed up of the stereotypes that black people can’t swim, ideas that our bones are too dense and seeing horrific stories of people drowning.’
The group decided to foster change themselves and have seen huge success with changing perceptions and encouraging aquatic government bodies to get on board.
‘It’s really powerful’, Alice added. ‘It’s going in the right way but it’s a marathon not a sprint and we have got a lot of work cut out for us. But it’s good, it’s exciting.’
The need for the work of BSA was amplified during this summer’s heatwave.
Up and down the country, black teenagers drowned in horrific tragedies on Britain’s waterways.
Many were thought to have caved in to peer pressure to enter the water without truly realising its potential dangers.
‘Water is also attractive to humans,’ Alice explained.
‘I think it’s just something natural to us, it’s just so beautiful and so pretty. When it’s warm it’s something we want to get into.
‘With the BSA it’s important for us to go into communities that haven’t had good relationships with water, which haven’t been approached in the past to be involved in aquatic sport or get in and learn to swim.’
Ensuring people know how to act in and around water will ‘preserve life’, the 25-year-old added.
The BSA also hope for more people from ethnic minorities to be encouraged to don a – suitable – swimming cap and consider swimming competitively.
Dearing is currently training for the chance to qualify and compete in the Paris 2024 Olympics where she hopes to ‘prove to myself that I can be the athlete I think I can be’.
While the rush of potential medals and podium places s exhilarating, the inspiration of a new generation of swimmers is just as exciting.
She added: ‘I want everyone across the world to know the BSA and I want everybody to learn to swim.
What does Black History Month mean to you?
Alice Dearing told Metro.co.uk: ‘Black History Month to me means the opportunity to reflect and improve. It’s great to see how far we’ve come in terms of equality and inclusion but there’s still a ways to go. We’re not at that point yet where we can take our foot off the gas and say everything is good. We still have a lot of areas and industries to persevere in and change ideologies and structural balances which have been in place for centuries.
‘It means getting everyone to the same place where they’ve got the same opportunities to succeed and that’s really what me speaking about swimming is about. I want everybody to have that opportunity to swim and grasp it with both hands’.
To read our other Black History Month stories, click here.
‘Wherever I go now, I’m always asking people if they know how to swim. Even if you do know how, go brush up on your skills and hopefully rediscover it or fall back in love with it.
‘It’s really exciting to think I’m hopefully impacting the future in a very positive way. I’d love it if when I’m old and grey, someone comes up to me and says “oh, you really inspired my to swim when I was younger”.
‘Even if I’m just inspiring one person then it’s worthwhile.’
Find out more about the Black Swimming Association here, or to follow Alice Dearing click here.
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Black History Month
October marks Black History Month, which reflects on the achievements, cultures and contributions of Black people in the UK and across the globe, as well as educating others about the diverse history of those from African and Caribbean descent.
For more information about the events and celebrations that are taking place this year, visit the official Black History Month website.