KEEP YOUR HEAD ABOVE WATER
Keep Your Head Above Water is a project which uses swimming as an opportunity to engage people, especially the youth, to become more aware of the needs of the homeless. The project was initiated by a young swimmer, Christopher Kleynhans, who refuses to be indifferent and was struck by the sadness of this issue when a homeless man named Collin, with whom he engaged frequently on the streets of the Southern Suburbs in Cape Town, died on the street last year. Children often don’t understand poverty and homelessness, simply because it can be a difficult issue to explain to them and therefore, perhaps subconsciously, avoided. Christopher’s objective with this project is to impart the message that homeless people need help and that there are constructive and effective ways of doing this and also to encourage the youth to be actively involved in this process. The important thing is to tell people how, so that it makes it easier to make a difference. Other than using swimming events to create awareness, the Keep Your Head Above Water project makes use of social media platforms such as Facebook (Keep Your Head Above Water), Twitter (@swimforchange) and Instagram (@swimforchange) to communicate information, encourage contributions for specific projects and seek sponsorships.
