From zero to hero
THIS SPECIAL PROGRAM TEACHES MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES TO FEEL SAFE IN THE WATER.
For heaps of Australians, swimming is second nature; they’ve been in bathers since before they could walk. But learning to swim is a bit like learning a new language – it’s a lot harder to pick up when you’re old enough to overthink it. Nadia Azizabadi, who never swam while growing up in Iran’s capital, Tehran, was 28 when she moved to Malaysia and took her first dip. By then, holding her head underwater felt like a pretty weird thing to do.
“Other swimmers told me to ‘put my head down and go down’,” she says. “But how? It doesn’t just ‘go down’. I tried! I think a lot of people have forgotten how they actually learnt.” Despite a few awkward beginnings, Nadia fell head over heels for the water, and started practising swimming on her own – in pools, and even the ocean. The computer science student’s newfound hobby surprised her family back in Iran, where swimming opportunities were few and far between, especially for women. “Water sport is not something families there think about at all,” she says. “My friends and family were asking, ‘Why do you want to do this? You’re not built for this.’ They said to concentrate on computer science.” In 2014, Nadia and her husband migrated to Hobart, Tasmania, where she hoped to learn even more about swimming. But even in a state surrounded by water, Nadia struggled to find her place. Swimming lessons were usually out of her budget, and it was hard for her to understand English-speaking instructors. She kept at it, though, and by 2017 had qualified as a swim instructor, an avid underwater rugby and hockey player, and even a certified rescue diver.
She also worked as an Arabic interpreter, which led her to interact with heaps of migrants and refugees around Tassie. She realised she wanted to give them what she hadn’t had: the opportunity to learn the basics of swimming in a country that valued it so highly.
if you're better than you were yesterday, you're a hero
Plus, being in the water is a pretty awesome form of stress relief. “It helped me through the difficult times of being a new arrival in a country with a new language and new culture. I knew it could help others as well,” she says.
In 2017, Nadia founded From Zero to Hero, a step-by-step program designed specifically for adult migrants and refugees who want to learn to swim – without the expense, language barrier or potential embarrassment of learning to do something other people seem to think is easy. “I remember how challenging it was to learn as an adult,” Nadia says. “So when they tell me they’re afraid of putting their face in the water, I understand. I know how it feels to be embarrassed in front of others, when you can’t do the same things even kids in the pool are doing.”
Funded through various community organisations such as the Migrant Resource Centre Tasmania, the program curriculum takes participants through the absolute basics of swimming, from understanding what to expect at a pool to water safety. From there, they can progress to swimming strokes, snorkelling, and even water sports like underwater rugby, underwater hockey and spearfishing. The ultimate goal is to help them develop a lifelong love of the water.
Many of Nadia’s students come from Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan or other countries where swimming wasn’t prioritised as part of their upbringing. Some are skilled workers who have raised children in Australia and put them through swimming lessons, but never learnt themselves. Now, they just want to swim with their kids at the beach. She’s also taught refugees aged 18 to 25 as part of an effort to involve them in local water sport teams and swimming clubs. That’s where Nadia, who swims competitively in national underwater rugby and hockey, met the people who made Australia feel like home.
“I think that community life you get from water sport is the most important thing,” she says. “They are family to me.” Even learning to float can be a game-changer for someone who’s never done it. Nadia remembers one woman who started crying the day she learnt to lean her head back and drift on the surface of the water. “She hugged me and said she couldn’t believe it,” Nadia says. “Her kids were watching and crying, too. They all saw it as a really big achievement. By teaching them how to float, I was showing them how to be relaxed and forget about their problems.” She adds: “The mental health help that migrants are getting from this program is very rewarding. As a newcomer to a country, your life can be full of stress. And I think swimming, or any kind of exercise, can help you release that stress.”
Nadia has also run pool and beach safety classes specifically for migrant women who want to feel confident they can look after their kids in the water. Swimming safety is a real concern for Australia’s migrant communities. According to a 2020 report from Surf Life Saving Australia, in the past 16 years, nearly half the people who have drowned on Australia’s coastline were born overseas. Nadia’s big dream is to make the program available to all new arrivals to Australia, and not just so they’re safe in a country surrounded by water. The name, From Zero to Hero, celebrates that momentous feeling of achieving something you didn’t think you could. “When you go to normal classes, you're looking at the other people and comparing yourself,” she says. “But in my program, I’m trying to teach them to be the hero of their yesterday – not just in swimming, but in everyday life. How much did you progress from yesterday? If you’re better than you were yesterday, you are a hero. It’s about having healthy and happy migrants – both physically and mentally.”