Sport England - Movement Fund has provided £7,452 of match funding
Ethnically diverse women's swim project
Surrey, United Kingdom
Aim
We are building water confidence in ethnically diverse women. We're offering them affordable and safe, female only swim classes.
ABOUT US
Shifa Network is a grassroots organisation supporting all women. It was established in 2004 by two local women from a South Asian background.
Over the years, Shifa has developed expertise in engaging with ethnically diverse women.
The Shifa Network team is small and really hands on. Everybody mucks in to get things done!
This is some of the team.
We are part of Catalyst Support, a charity that provides Community, Specialist and Outreach services in Surrey.
Shifa Network have been providing women only swim classes for many years. From our previous beginners and improvers 'learn to swim' projects we know there is still a need for basic water confidence programmes for ethnically diverse women.
Here are some photos of our ladies in action in Camberley.
OUR VISION
We want to build on the success of these projects. Now that these women have some water skills, we want them to be confident enough to swim independently, and with their children.
We also want to help more women from ethnically diverse communities become confident in the water.
Did you know...?
76% of women from the South Asian community cannot swim 25m unaided (Swim England 2022). But that 97% of respondents from South Asian communities want to ensure their children can swim (Swim England 2022).
Sadly, there are still limited female-only affordable public water spaces in Woking and Camberley to enable women to continue to develop their swimming skills.
We are filling that gap and this is why it's also important to continue working to help more ethnically diverse women acquire this vital life skill.
We've learnt from experience that for most ethnically diverse ladies to learn to swim, the sessions need to have : Female swim teacher, female lifeguard, private environment and be affordable.
We know from experience in running female only 'learn to swim' classes that there remains a shortage of female lifeguards and swim instructors. We would like to see more ethnically diverse women training in this area. Through our projects we are supporting women from diverse backgrounds to train in this area and add capacity. This is something we are proud of!
This is one of our Woking Groups.
KEY FACTS
- Over 50% of the women who want to learn to swim with us are from low income families.
- Between 50-70% of our client group have long term health conditions, including arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, mental ill health, additional learning needs and neurodiversity.
- 25% of the current swim cohort reported that they were an unpaid carer for family members or had caring responsibilities.
We are passionate about supporting these women and their families.
OUR PROJECT - MOVING FORWARD
The project will benefit ethnically diverse women in Woking and Camberley by giving them the opportunity to access a swim programme to improve their water confidence, mental health and wellbeing.
The swim sessions will not only benefit existing participants but new ones too (we have waiting lists of 2-3 months on average for both our swim programmes).
The sessions will also benefit clients' families, particularly their children, because the women will have more confidence to swim with them.
Our data shows that women on the swim programmes report improvements in their physical and mental health (Catalyst Recovery Stars data).
Given how many of our swim participants are carers or have caring responsibilities the pool sessions will give them an opportunity to take some time for themselves, enabling them to to focus on their own wellbeing.
We have increasingly seen working women with mental, physical or emotional health needs wanting to access female only swim spaces to combat isolation and to socialise with other women. Our evening sessions have enabled this to happen.
We’re aiming to raise £7,452 and we need your support to get there! If we hit this target with donations from at least 25 supporters, we’ll unlock match funding from Sport England, doubling your impact and bringing our total to an amazing £14,904. Every donation, big or small, gets us closer to our goal and helps unlock this vital funding.
We have brilliant printed notebooks from a very kind business called Duplo that we can give the first 4 UK pledges (A4 size) and first 10 UK pledges (A5 size).
More rewards will be added soon!
HERE'S WHAT OUR CLIENTS ARE SAYING
"I get so much from the Shifa team, especially the swimming. Not only does it keep me fit and healthy, it's also great from a social and mental health point of view. It's such an amazing and welcoming community". Swim project participant.
PLAY YOUR PART.
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea.
Thank you for your support!
This project successfully funded on 29th August 2025