About The WE SWIM Multicultural Community Water Safety Program

The WE SWIM Multicultural Community Water Safety Program is a national, evidence-informed initiative to reduce drowning risk, remove barriers to swimming and water safety education, and build belonging for refugees, recently arrived migrants and broader multicultural communities.

One in three drowning deaths is someone born overseas, and while nearly half of Australian children can't swim 50 metres by the end of primary school, this proportion is estimated to be even higher among children from multicultural backgrounds. Multicultural communities face language, cultural, financial and access barriers to lessons, venues and aquatic careers. The WE SWIM Multicultural Community Water Safety Program funded by the Australian Government and led by Royal Life Saving Society - Australia responds to this challenge.

Royal Life Saving Australia will bring together national coordination, community partnerships, and rigorous monitoring, evaluation and learning into a single, coherent program built around a commitment to saving lives, removing barriers, and building belonging. As a result, multicultural communities will gain safer access to aquatic environments, stronger swimming and water safety capability, more trusted information and experience more welcoming venues. Over time, this will reduce drowning risk, remove barriers and build belonging for refugees, recently arrived migrants and broader multicultural communities.

Every WE SWIM activity activates one or more of four pillars:

• WE CONNECT – links multicultural communities to local pools, swim schools, clubs and councils.
• WE WELCOME – builds culturally safe, welcoming aquatic venues and opens workforce and leadership pathways.
• WE PROMOTE – delivers multilingual water safety messages through trusted community voices.
• WE LEARN – removes barriers to swimming and water safety education and builds skills to national benchmarks.

Royal Life Saving funds this work through three partnership streams – Place-Based Partnerships, Community Programs and Pathfinder Programs – aligned to the Australian Water Safety Strategy 2030's target to halve drowning by 2030, the Commonwealth's Multicultural Access and Equity Policy, and Royal Life Saving's strategic framework for eliminating drowning, empowering communities, strengthening safety and succeeding together.

For the full program objectives, outcomes framework, funding streams and eligibility, see the Program Logic Model, Program Summary and At a Glance table below.