With a decades long history of excellence in Buffalo City, Vikings Swimming Club remains a cherished brand, particularly with latest initiatives to introduce water skills and swimming to pupils in under resourced areas.
Claude Groep, assistant junior coach, and head of the learn to swim division of Vikings, said the club has always been passionate about broadening access to swimming as a sport, given the potential for talent that can be unearthed amongst children living in communities who cannot often access swimming programmes or even a local pool.
Groep said, “We are and have been for a long time, the only swimming club in East London conducting development programmes in under resourced areas. This has been important for us because we identified a lot of drowning incidents in previously disadvantaged coloured and black communities.
“Covid-19 hampered progress with the initiatives in the last few years, but the schools remained in touch with us, pleading for the re-introduction of our sessions.
“This proves that our service as a club is valuable and essential in the areas we target such as Buffalo Flats extension, Duncan Village, Scenery Park and the surrounds.
“We work also with children from Khayalethu Special School and Salem baby care, who benefit greatly from swimming because it enables them to participate no matter their capabilities.
“I am very passionate about development programmes for children from struggling back grounds because I was once such a child and because local athletes invested me, I went on to have a fruitful career in SA swimming, as well as my own coaching business.”
The Vikings development swimming programme runs throughout the year, even in winter, to provide the children with opportunities to practice and the sessions are run at the Joan Harrison.
By the end of the year, the club hopes to enter the development swimmers into local galas, to give the children a taste of competition.
Head coach for Vikings and ex-Olympic swimmer, Kerry Voke said, “I feel that swimming and the development programme of the sport is a life skill and should be supported. We live at the coast and around dams and rivers and therefore it is important for the learn to swim programme and to identify talent for our future swimmers.
“We want people to understand the importance of this life skill in the growth and development of a child.
“I want to give back to a sport and life skill that gave me so many opportunities in my life.”
Head of Swimming SA, Alan Fritz has commended the work Vikings are doing in East London and vows that, at local level, more support will extended to clubs and schools to empower the creation of high performance structures for local swimming.
