Ep 21. Alice Dearing & Danielle Obe, Co-Founders & Chair, Black Swimming Association: Representation and creating Olympic history!

“The BSA (Black Swimming Association) is set up as a bridge… building bridges into disenfranchised and disengaged communities.” Alice Dearing made history at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, as the first black female swimmer to represent Team GB at an Olympic Games. Danielle Obe is Chair of the Black Swimming Association, a charity that she co-founded along with Alice. The Black Swimming Association (BSA) is a non-profit organisation set up to diversify the world of aquatics through education, advocacy, support and research. In England currently 95% of black adults and 80% of black children don’t swim. Furthermore, black children are 3 times more likely to drown than white children (Source: Swim England) The BSA is on a mission to change this. To break down barriers that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities face in aquatics and to highlight the importance of learning to swim, as an essential and invaluable life saving skill. Alice and Danielle, through the BSA, are determined to make aquatics safer and more accessible to their communities, by inspiring and facilitating participation and inclusion for all. Recorded Sept 2021.