Logan Council funds adult swimming program to combat high rate of migrant drownings

The first time Khadra Hussein Awil, 20, took her first tentative steps into a pool was earlier this year.

Coming from Somalia, she is amongst a new cohort of refugees and migrants learning to swim through a program funded by Logan City Council and the Federal Health Department.

At first, Khadra said she was scared, but her confidence has quickly grown.

She now has dreams of swimming at Gold Coast’s iconic beaches and training to become a pool-side lifeguard.

“Many people are scared [of] the water but other people enjoy it … I will tell them, ‘the water is not that scary’.”