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How Ukrainian children learn to swim in Sandkamp indoor pool
sandcamp.A special swimming course recently ended in Sandkamp’s indoor swimming pool: 21 children and young people – mainly refugees from Ukraine – learned to swim there or improved their knowledge.
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There is a longer story behind the course: A swimming course for women was to take place in Sandkamp’s indoor pool in the first week of the Easter holidays. But the course fell during Ramadan, and many of the women who volunteered were Muslim. Gradually, more and more of them jumped. To ensure that the offer does not fail completely, Wolfsburg Refugee Aid quickly developed a new concept: Instead, it offered a swimming course for Ukrainian girls. “Ludmilla Wunder from the counseling center for people with a migration background in Westhagen mediated contacts, and the swimming course was already full,” says Günter Schütte from the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Good mood: Swimming makes it easier to get to Wolfsburg.
© Source: Sabrina Fricke
The brothers also wanted swimming lessons
However, he did not count on the brothers of the girls from the Ukrainian foster families living on Hageberg: They were angry because they also wanted to learn to swim. Therefore, Schütte and his colleagues set up an extra course for these children on Sunday afternoon.
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‘None of the Ukrainian children speak German or English. So we communicated with hands and feet. As a sports teacher, I was used to teaching with many gestures, “says Schütte. The retired teacher has since 2016 offered swimming courses for people with a migration background with a team of up to six swimming coaches.
In the video: Children from Ukraine learn to swim in Sandkamp
His coaching staff includes Fahed Shikh Alshabab from Syria, who has been in Germany for six and a half years. The student and the competition swimmer are very happy to help on the courses, just like the competition swimmer Natascha Svintytska, who herself fled Ukraine only two months ago. She shares the same fate with her protégés and knows what it means to have fled war and to have to arrive in a whole new environment.
The swimming course makes it easier to get there
That the swimming lessons make it easier to reach was written over the young people’s faces. They splashed happily in the water together after seven of them got the seahorse and eight the bronze mark. Also present: Darja (11) and her brother Ilja (13), who teaches and speaks Russian in the tradition of late returnees. Both were born in Germany and help with translation when hand-to-foot communication is not sufficient.
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It is all funded by the education and participation vouchers that all refugees who have been recognized in Germany receive. “Because this course has been created in an instant, many have not yet received an education card, but we have received the city’s approval that we can issue a single invoice,” says Schütte and praises the unbureaucratic approach.
The next courses are already planned
Additional courses start Saturday, June 11th and Sunday, June 12th. The integrated swimming courses are again open to everyone. During the summer holidays from 18 to 22 July, an intensive course is offered. More information about the swimming courses is available at https://fluechtlingshilfe-wolfsburg.de/
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By Sabrina Fricke