Swimmingly Manitoba (formerly Manitoba SwimAbility), is a non-profit, charitable organization that aims to improve the lives of youth with exceptional needs through affordable and accessible one-on-one swimming and water safety instruction in the Province of Manitoba. We are a volunteer-based organization funded solely from individual donors. 

Donations to Swimmingly Manitoba go directly to supporting our efforts to grow our volunteer base which will allow more than the 300 children on our waitlist to enter the program and have access to our swimming programming. 

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The need for our volunteer-based service is evident. A 2002 study by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention found that drowning is still the second-leading cause of injury-related death in children, despite a significant increase in general swimming proficiency in North America. Significantly, a separate study found that disabled children are a further ten times likelier to suffer from a submersion injury than the general population (Injury Prevention, 2001).

Whereas a large portion of the population has been exposed to water safety education through relatively affordable, group swimming lessons, the format in which these services are provided is not suited to special needs children. Indeed, participants in our program typically have shorter attention spans, require more personalized supervision and need individually adapted teaching methods to ensure their success.

Moreover, according to the Canadian Participation and Activity Limitations Survey, 26% of children with special needs live in families below the low-income cut-off. Accordingly, many parents of children with special needs are faced with the costly prospect of enrolling their children in private lessons which they cannot afford. For reference, whereas a set of nine group lessons at a local, municipal pool costs $95, a set of nine private lessons at the same municipal pool costs $360… almost four times as much.

Put together, these facts paint a concerning picture: the slice of the population for which water safety instruction seems to be the most relevant is exactly the portion of the population most marginalized by the structure of swimming lessons currently on offer.

We build on the institutional strengths and successes of existing swimming lesson organizations. We are able to be more effective in injury prevention by providing lessons specifically targeted and adapted to those children at highest risk of drowning in our society. We recruit our volunteers to be qualified swimming instructors and work with our community partners to properly train, educate and prepare them for the rigours of working with special-needs children. We rent out pool space once a week, batch lessons together and assign one instructor to each child. By using innovative techniques to dramatically cut our operating expenses, as well as by actively fundraising, we are able to offer private swimming instruction at a rate affordable even by those living under the poverty line.

We are excited to introduce you to Swimmingly! We began in 2011 as Making Waves Winnipeg, with only 10 volunteers and 10 swimmers at a single pool location. Through your support, as Manitoba SwimAbility our program has now grown to 400 swimmers and 200 volunteers at 11 pools throughout the province. And we don’t intend to stop here! We are so proud to be able to provide lessons at four different pools in Winnipeg, as well as in Brandon, Dauphin, Selkirk, Winkler, Carman, Portage la Prairie, and Roblin.