By Brigitte Gisel
„Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around.” Ansam Audi stands in a semicircle with her five young swimming students in the non-swimmers’ pool at the outdoor pool in Tübingen. They are all holding hands and reciting the rhyme together. On command, they let go and spin around once with the pool noodle in their arms. They float in the water and giggle. Their swimming instructor is beaming too. On the second day of the beginner’s swimming course „Swimming for All Children,” the five- to ten-year-olds have already become more courageous. The water, glistening turquoise in the sun, is already much more familiar to them than it was the day before. They even dare to jump in or dip their heads under the water for a moment. Ansam Audi knows that there is a good chance that her pupils will pass the Seepferdchen swimming test at the end of the course.
From student to teacher
Teaching children to swim in a German outdoor pool was not part of the young Yazidi woman’s life plan. She was born in northern Iraq in 1997, and at that time swimming was unthinkable. Even in 2016, when she set off for Germany with two of her younger siblings for fear of persecution, the element of water was alien to her. She had never been swimming before. She avoided water even when traveling, preferring to take the long and no less dangerous route over land. After a tortuous journey, she finally ended up in Ofterdingen. There she began to learn German. In 2019, she heard about the „Swimming for All Children” initiative and the swimming lessons. Her brother was already learning to swim there. „I wanted to try it,” says Ansam. But she is unsure. What do you actually wear for swimming? And what will people think? Together with her sister, the then 22-year-old searches the internet for swimsuits. She chooses one with slightly longer legs. It makes her feel safe. Then came her first swimming lesson at the Uhlandbad in Tübingen: „The water felt good,” she says. From then on, she learned everything – from breaststroke to crawl, backstroke and butterfly, started diving and earned her Seepferdchen and other swimming badges. At some point, she had the idea of training to become a lifeguard so she could help others.
The battle with fear
But then suddenly the fear sets in. Although Ansam has never had any bad experiences with water and is a good swimmer, water suddenly feels strangely threatening to her. All of a sudden, she keeps thinking about what other refugees have told her about the horrors of crossing the sea in refugee boats. People in her own family have drowned while fleeing across the sea. Ansam faced her feelings. „I always told myself: I’m not giving up,” she says. She convinces herself to try just one more time. But when the next appointment comes around, her courage is greater than her fear. She gets into the water and continues with the lifeguard course. She trains herself to overcome her fear at home on dry land. „I sat in front of a mirror and told myself everything I had already achieved,” she says, laughing. On other days, she sits in a room, closes her eyes, and lets images of water pass before her inner eye. If that’s not enough, she calls her two little siblings and remembers their escape: „If I managed that, I can manage this.”
„I wanted to give something back.”
Eventually, the fear subsides and Ansam’s joy in the water is unclouded once more. Even COVID-19 cannot slow down her training to become a swimming instructor. Her desire to pass on her experiences is simply too strong. Since her own swimming lessons, she has been involved with the „Swimming for All Children” association, helping out with courses and gradually growing into the role of a swimming instructor as she trains to become a lifeguard. The association is a bit like a family to her. „I wanted to give something back,” she says. She has now also completed additional training as an inclusive swimming instructor and can now lead swimming lessons for children with disabilities. She found time for the swimming lessons while training to be a legal assistant. Now that she has completed her training, she is looking for a job. She has applied for a German passport, but the process is on hold until she finds a new job.
A colorful team
She is not the only one with refugee experience who learned to swim at the club as a child and then became a teacher herself: Eddy from Syria and Ruzbeh from Iran also followed this path. Vadzim from Belarus came to Germany as a trained lifeguard. „Currently, half of the people have a migrant background,” says Manuela Sacherer, one of the two chairpersons of „Swimming for All Children.” The close bond between the members is evident in the fact that most of the swimming instructors waive their expense allowances.
Manuela Sacherer is full of praise for Ansam Audi. „She can do everything, is incredibly reliable and gets on really well with all kinds of people.” The only person Ansam has ever had trouble with is her own mother, who really didn’t want to learn to swim, she says. Most recently, she taught a group of women with refugee backgrounds to swim in Mössingen. „On the first day, they didn’t really want to go in the water. But I was sure they would come out with their swimming badges,” says Ansam. She was right.
INFO: „Swimming for all children”
„Swimming for all children” was founded in 2015 on the initiative of Dagmar Müller and is a project run by the „Bündnis für Familie Tübingen” (Tübingen Family Alliance) association. The aim was to provide free swimming lessons to children from refugee families and other socially disadvantaged families. The offer is aimed specifically at children and young people with a KreisBonusCard. Courses are now available not only in Tübingen’s outdoor and indoor swimming pools, but also in Mössingen, Rottenburg, and Ammerbuch. Initially, 30 children were taught each year, but today 38 volunteers teach 400 children and young people to swim. Seven of them learned to swim themselves through the initiative. The members come from 13 countries and speak 25 languages.
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