Australia is a highly diverse country, made up of many nationalities, religions and races. New immigrants arrive in our great country all the time, looking for ways to become part of their community. Joining a swim club is a great way to make new friendships, learn a life skill and to learn English through conversation.
Aside from the many physical benefits it provides, the ability to swim (and swim well) offers cultural and social benefits. Competent swimmers can participate in swimming clubs and ocean swimming throughout their lives. Summer trips to the beach become opportunities to cool down and have fun instead of being potentially dangerous.
Members of squad-based and ocean swimming clubs also give back to their communities and find purpose through the act of volunteering.
Swimming NSW will create a welcoming environment for all. This includes people with disability, those from indigenous communities, individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds and LGBTIQ+ members of our community. We commit to supporting our clubs and areas with resources to facilitate the initial and ongoing participation of these members in the swimming community. We will advocate for inclusion across all forms of swimming and hold our stakeholders and policy makers to account for fair integration of all athletes in our sport.
For more information about our and Swimming Australia's inclusion goals, policies and resources, visit this page.
Multicultural Membership Drive - 2022/2023 Season
- Swimming NSW partnering with the LOTE Agency
- working with leaders and other influential individuals within the targeted communities
- engaging in online closed groups
- reaching out to CALD media outlets
- engaging with migrant service centres, peak bodies and other community groups that attract CALD members of targeted communities
- Multicultural membership drive - campaign information
- one social media graphic with the above messaging in English, Arabic, Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional
- social media copy with the above messaging, translated as above
- a comprehensive stakeholder pack with complete information about Swimming NSW, clubs and info about this campaign
- Multicultural membership drive - marketing materials
- Social media graphic and copy translated into four languages
- Stakeholder pack
Swimming NSW has partnered with the multicultural outreach and communications experts at the LOTE Agency to encourage diverse community members to join swim clubs across NSW.
The LOTE Agency's approach is unique. While they develop marketing and communications materials translated into various languages, they also utilise their network to reach Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities in non-traditional ways, such as:
The LOTE Agency have been provided with a list of Swimming NSW's 306 clubs so they can engage organisations outside of our traditional reach, and refer interested parties back to a club they may be interested in joining.
As part of this engagement campaign, diverse communities will be informed about the positive, welcoming environment swimming clubs are for CALD community members.
Communications materials will be provided to Swimming NSW and club stakeholders in three targeted languages other than English: Arabic, Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional.
The key messages of this campaign are 1) registrations are open for the 2022-2023 season and 2) CALD members can use an Active Kids voucher to join a club (which we know has been a significant driver of memberships the past two seasons).
Marketing materials include:
The LOTE Agency will also launch a four-week PR campaign, commencing the week of 5 September, engaging with all groups mentioned in the above accordion. During this time, clubs can use these multicultural resources to publish their own posts on social media, but more importantly, clubs should be prepared to receive queries about their registration season.
Marketing materials in four languages are now available to download. Materials include: