Black women in Nottingham reclaim confidence in water through Swim Sista Swim

Carol Burrell stands at the edge of a pool in Nottingham, watching women who've feared water for decades finally float. Some are in their 60s. Some have never learned to swim. All of them are here because someone decided that water confidence shouldn't be a luxury reserved for those with access, money, or the right hair type.

Swim Sista Swim started with a simple observation: Black women in Nottingham faced real, specific barriers to water-based activities. Not just the practical ones—though those mattered too—but the cultural weight of it all. Haircare concerns. Generational stories about who belongs in pools. The quiet message, absorbed over years, that this wasn't for them.

Burrell, a Community Wellbeing Coordinator for the Canal & River Trust, decided to test something different. With backing from Sport England, she launched a pilot program in 2024 with 25 participants across ten weekly sessions. The curriculum mixed straightforward swim instruction with something rarer: honest conversations. Women talked about fear. About shame. About what it meant to reclaim space in water.

Then there was the practical detail that changed everything. Soul Cap, a company making swim caps designed for Afro hair, partnered with the program. It sounds small—a cap—until you realize it removes one more reason to stay out of the pool. One less thing to worry about. One less barrier between a woman and the water.

From the pool to the canal

"There are women in the group who have held onto this fear for 30 or 40 years, believing they can't swim because that's what they've been told," Burrell told The Optimist Daily. "Week in, week out, I've seen the confidence just grow."

But the story didn't stop at the leisure center. Participants began exploring the canal. Some picked up paddleboarding. Others started training to support new swimmers coming through the program. What began as a confidence-building initiative became something closer to a movement—women reclaiming a relationship with water that had been denied to them.

The momentum caught attention beyond Nottingham. In 2025, Burrell joined Sport England's "This Girl Can" Black women's advisory panel, a recognition of her work as a leading voice in accessible wellness. The third cohort of Swim Sista Swim is already underway, and Burrell has confirmed more expansion is coming.

What makes this model stand out isn't complexity—it's the opposite. It recognizes that barriers to participation aren't just individual (confidence, ability) but structural (representation, safety, cultural relevance). By addressing all of them at once, the program creates something genuinely rare: a space where Black women don't have to shrink themselves to fit into an existing system. The system shifts to meet them.

When asked about her role in all this, Burrell stayed grounded: "All I'm trying to do is change the narrative and encourage Black women to access water-based activities by building up their water confidence." Change the narrative. As if that's not the whole point. As if that's not everything.