Meet the former Great Britain swimming champion teaching Sunderland's children to swim

Former national 200 metre backstroke champion Jonathan Carlisle talks about his Swim City enterprise and Ice Kids  community interest company.

Transcript

00:00 Okay then John if you could start by asking about how you got into swimming, what your

00:03 background is in swimming?

00:04 Yeah I got into swimming when I was younger just like every other child, learnt to swim

00:09 in Sunderland and then I joined a club at Sunderland Club, ended up going to the Bath

00:15 National Centre and then swam for my country, became national champion in 2014, never made

00:23 Olympics what I really wanted to do but then got into learning to swim with my business

00:28 in Swim City.

00:31 And what is the rationale behind Swim City and what does it involve?

00:33 So Swim City when we first started I really wanted kids to kind of experience what I did

00:39 in the sport and that's slightly changed over the last six years and now I really want as

00:46 many kids, adults, everyone really enjoying the sport as long as possible so not just

00:51 learning to swim and stopping when they're eight or nine, we want kids enjoying swimming

00:56 all the way through the teens and then also when they're into the adult ages as well and

01:01 then also all the way up to old age as well.

01:06 Is there a safety aspect as well?

01:07 I mean we often hear about people getting addicted to water, instance at the beach and

01:11 in rivers and lakes, is there a safety aspect as well?

01:13 Yeah I mean it's crazy, I mean we live, I mean the full of the UK we're an island and

01:17 how many kids who don't learn to swim, I think it's around about 50% of kids who never ever

01:22 learn to swim in the UK and especially living in Sunderland, I mean being on the beach front,

01:29 we really want kids to not just learn to swim but understand water safety, if they ever

01:34 do get in a difficulty what to do but hopefully never get in a difficulty as well and understanding

01:40 you know rivers and seas and how to handle that kind of situation.

01:44 I understand also you've recently set up something called Ice Kids, what's that all about?

01:48 Yeah so we set up Ice Kids, it came off just trying to give something back to our swim

01:53 city parents, got a lot of engagement from it through beach events and then we set up

01:59 a CIC early this year in January and pretty much the aim of that is to try to get kids

02:07 from low income families, families who maybe are struggling with the cost of living crisis

02:11 into swimming but also activities and we've been working with the Hath Fund through Together

02:17 for Children to offer free/funded events and we'll be doing that over every half term over

02:24 the next year as well.