WeeklySA_AdminLIFE SKILL: Ekurhuleni lass runs a private self-funded swimming school to empower locals in water literacy and to prevent unnecessary drownings
By Ali Mphaki
As a little girl Thulisile Kubheka loved playing in the water. She used to fill up a big steel movable tub with water and call that a pool.
And when it rained, together with her friends and siblings, would frolic in the muddy puddles outside, just to experience the allure and sensation of being in a swimming pool.
Typical of most black townships`, there was no swimming pool nearby both her Soweto birth of place and in Sebokeng, in the Vaal, where she spent most of her teen years.
Those with a love of water like her, but with a more adventurous streak, would occasionally sneak out to nearby spruits to have a splash, notwithstanding the health risks associated with swimming in such murky and filthy waters.
Moving to Soweto after matriculating in 2005, Thuli, as Kubheka is fondly known, could not resist the urge to follow her childhood passion which saw her become a regular visitor at the Orlando swimming pool as she tried to horn her swimming skills.
If practise makes perfect, it was not long before she gained enough rudimentary competence and courage to approach the pool’s Lifeguards to inquire if she could be offered “private” swimming lessons.
As fate would have it, there was a youth developmental programme for female Life Savers at the time, and she took it up like a fish to water to qualify both as a swimming instructor and as a Lifeguard in less than two years.
Armed with her swimming skills and concerned at the alarming number of fatal drownings especially of children which she believes most are preventable, Thuli started approaching various schools and libraries to offer swimming lessons.
In instances where schools did not have a pool, she would negotiate to use facilities of those institutions in the suburbs to teach her learners.
Needless to say, this was proving cumbersome, if you factor logistical issues like transport costs etc. Having moved out of Soweto and now residing in Dawn Park in Ekurhuleni, Thuli thought it was best to erect a huge pool in her yard in order to continue to push her passion.
Using her hard-earned savings, the result was a 12.5 x 5 metre-long pool and the launch of her swimming school aptly called Bubbly Glide Swim school, which opened its waters in 2021.
Bubbly Glide Swim school offers lessons in how to swim, introduction to competitive season, and Aqua Aerobics classes. Armed with four qualified swimming instructors and two Level One coaches, Bubbly Glide Swim school is accredited to teach swimming from age One to pensionable age.
Bubbly Glide Swim school also recruits and train own swimming instructors. “Our mission is to be easily accessible to our marginalised black communities with affordable and yet expert teaching and also to impact on job creation and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle for all ages,” says Thuli.
Whilst Thuli’s school is still to produce an Olympic champion, she proudly says all the graduates from the school when pursuing their swimming careers further tend to do well because of the solid foundation they got.
So far scores of learners and enthusiasts have waded in Thuli’s Bubbly Glide Swim school waters in Dawn Park, but it is Thuli’s fervent wish to erect another branch in the nearby township of Katlehong, to enable easy access for the locals.
Whilst it has not been an easy dive to run a business without any support from government and the private sector, the 37-year-old Thuli seems unfazed of the challenges ahead and is prepared to face them head-on.
“I do not have any sponsors. I use my own capital to run the school,” she says while appealing to both government and the private sector to lend a hand. If only she could get would like to get sponsorship for moveable and immovable equipment, transportation and attire, the sky is the limit, she says. In her book, there is no biological or scientific issue why so many black individuals do not know how to swim.
She opines that though a lot of stereotypes about black people’s ability to swim persists, the underlying causes that perpetuate the lack of black representation in swimming pools globally is entirely social.
It is also a mystery wrapped in a conundrum that 30 years into a democracy there’s been no black representing South Africa in international swimming competitions like the Olympics etc.
According to the International Maritime Rescue Federation, in South African, a majority Black country, only 15 per cent of individuals know how to swim, and of these only about six percent are able to save a person from drowning.
During apartheid times Blacks were systematically denied access to public swimming pools. These facilities were often designated as “whites only,” leaving Black communities with limited or no access to safe swimming environments.
Thirty years into a democracy latest reports are that most of the 17 public pools in Ekurhuleni continue to stay shut in this swimming season, in a country that is globally listed among the top 45 countries with a drowning rate of 4.06 per 100,000 population and where more than 2500 South Africans lose their lives annually due to fatal drowning.
Stats show that at least 30% of these fatal casualties are children under the age of 18, the largest proportion of children that drown being those under the age of 4. This translates to an average of 1 to 2 children drowning every day in South Africa.
Freshwater bodies, pools, and the ocean continue to be high-risk areas where preventable tragedies occur.
Despite the known challenges, Thuli believes black communities can develop their own top swimmers with support from federations and family. “We can do it,” she says matter-of-factly. Thuli also works closely with the Mzanzi Scuba Diving Academy for development of swimmers and career development for scuba diving and commercial diving,
She is also affiliated with the Eastern Gauteng Aquatics. It is via the collective and commendable efforts of people like Thuli who can help curb this silent epidemic of our children drowning and the lack of black participation in swimming contests.
Where is the private sector when Bubbly Glide Swim school needs them the most?
Or the Minister of sport Gayton McKenzie?
