Swim For Terri-ers
World Swim Against Malaria started because of Swim For Terri.
Swim For Terri was a charity swim that took place on 6th Dec 2003 to raise money
for a little girl called Terri Calvesbert who suffered 90% burns in a house fire
when she was 2 years old.
What started as a three-person swim grew in the space of 7 weeks to become 153 swims
in 73 countries involving 10,000 people and raised £175,000, 100% of which went
to The Terri Calvesbert Trust.
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There were 11 eleven year olds swimming for Terri in Bolivia ; an entire school of 700 swam for Terri in Argentina ; a school in England completed 30 Channel crossings between them;
the Royal Air Force flew 8 students to Ascension Island to join the Swim For Terri there; Air Greenland
flew four students to Nuuk,
Greenland to join their Swim For Terri; in Mexico a man who suffered 68% burns went along to support
those swimming; in
South Africa, there was a swim in almost every state; there were swims in
Swaziland
, Zimbabwe
and Mauritius;
in one of the swims in
Australia a blind swimmer who has actually swum the English Channel led
17 swimmers in a 2km ocean swim. There were also swims in Fiji,
Tonga, Vanuatu,
the Philippines,
Malaysia,
Indonesia,
Brunei,
Vietnam,
Thailand,
Korea, Nepal, Japan,
Spain, Norway,
Switzerland,
Norway, Germany,
the Czech Republic,
Slovakia,
Poland,
the Cayman Islands,
the Falkland Islands,
Uruguay,
Peru, Ecuador,
Venezuela,
Colombia,
Brazil,
the United Arab
Emirates, Qatar,
Bahrain,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Canada, China,
New Zealand
...I could go on and on. |
A number of people asked, 'What are we doing next year?' The throwaway line was
‘Let's get a million people to swim...' One thing led to another, and well...
It seemed appropriate to ask those involved in Swim For Terri, the ‘Swim For Terri-ers’
if they would like to be involved in World Swim Against Malaria too, and they said
yes... to the tune of 5,000+ people.