By Beth Bohnert

Office of Advancement

Mothers everywhere know how hard it can be to take time for themselves. For Faduma Nur, a mother of six daughters, swimming lessons provided a chance to connect with her daughters but also allowed her to focus on something outside her family responsibilities.  

Faduma and five of her daughters enjoyed their swimming lessons after joining the Learn to Swim program supported by the University of Waterloo’s Warriors Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Fund. The fund supports athletics programs at the University and elsewhere and is made possible in part by generous Giving Tuesday donors.  

“For the first time, I was learning, not teaching,” Faduma says of Learn to Swim. 

The Learn to Swim program is hosted by the University of Waterloo Warriors Alliance. The program is designed to promote swimming lessons to people from racialized backgrounds from the Kitchener-Waterloo community who never had the opportunity to learn this important life skill.  

The Alliance is a group of staff and students working together to create positive change for the Black, Indigenous and Racialized (BIR) community and combat racism through awareness-building, education and action. The group created the program in partnership with Warriors Varsity Swimming and Adventure4Change, an organization striving to provide accessible education and learning opportunities while building healthy communities.