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