During last term on the 26th and 27th of March the Northern Beaches community including our own school’s leadership team along with a collection of other students involved themselves in the Head Above Water charity swim event.
The Head Above Water Australia company was founded to “harness the power of a positive, supportive network” in response to mental health challenges, including the high suicide rate, facing the Northern Beaches and Australian community. According to Lifeline, 9 Australians each day take their life, 75% of which are male.
In order to effectively respond to these mental challenges the company launched the Head Above Water (HAW) swim in 2019. The event takes place over 24 hours where participants swim as many laps as they can in the Collaroy Rock pool, building mental fitness and to show their dedication towards building a mentally fit community. The money raised by the individual donations from the swimathon are distributed by the registered mental health charity Gotcha4Life to organizations within our community to provide the means to create a mentally fit community. These organizations include Man Anchor, Tomorrow Man and Tomorrow Woman.
At our school we have had incursions from Tomorrow Man and Woman previously and it can be said that these programmes have been beneficial to our school community, promoting positive networks within our school.
If you want to learn more about HAW’s programme partners visit their website at: https://www.headabovewater.com.au/our-programme-partners
Over the course of the event various students from our school community partook in the swimathon to help strengthen the community’s mental fitness.
On the 26th of March from 5pm to 6pm our school’s prefect team alongside a group of year 11’s rallied by Rory Connor’s swam the event and were cheered by Dr Hillier, Mrs Thomas and Mr Hegarty.
We also had more student involvement throughout the 24 hours including more members of the newspaper team who weren’t swimming early Saturday morning along with other year 11 boys.
From swimming on two occasions, the experience was not only enjoyable due to swimming with friends but also fulfilling due to the aspect of community involvement.
Collectively the student effort from our school helped raise more than $2,000 out of the total $130,000 raised during the event. These funds will help build mental fitness in schools including our own, clubs and workplaces across the Northern Beaches.
Written By Kael Borrello
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