How Sports Open Doors to Community and Safety

When B.C.’s Ministry of Health put out a press release about World Drowning Prevention Day on July 25, they noted accidental drowning victims in the province are most often males who died in summer.

Relying on information from a recent BC Coroners Service report, the press release said alcohol and drug use were factors in the deaths of almost 40 per cent of accidental drowning victims from 2013 to 2023.

But the BC Coroners Service report notes victims’ swimming abilities and weather conditions were not considered as factors in their deaths, something the service pledged would be present in future reports.

Nor did the report consider how long victims had lived in Canada. While statistics have not been collected, anecdotal accounts suggest newcomers to Canada are more vulnerable when it comes to drowning.

“Every summer we see incidences of drownings, and often, they will be newcomers,” said Kirsty Peterson, director of career advancement and innovation at DiverseCity Community Resources Society in Surrey.

Fourteen years ago the Lifesaving Society, a long-standing provider of lifeguard and first aid training in Canada, conducted research on newcomers’ swimming habits and water safety knowledge.

Over two-thirds of respondents viewed swimming as a fun activity and planned to be near water that summer. But fewer than half had ever had swimming lessons.

One big reason is that swimmable water and water safety measures, including swimming lessons, are not necessarily as present or accessible in other countries as they are in Canada, Peterson said.

“Not everyone understands the dangers or potential dangers of getting into water, especially open water,” she said. The ocean can be dangerous if an undertow pulls a person out into deeper water, for example, Peterson said.

It’s common for people of all backgrounds to overestimate their swimming strength, Peterson added.

Newcomers may not be aware they can access — sometimes for free or at subsidized rates — swimming pools and lessons through public recreation facilities, Peterson said.

This knowledge gap is just one more barrier newcomers face when it comes to participating in physical activities and sports here.

Barriers to belonging

Despite the fact that many immigrants represent Canada in world athletic competitions like the Summer Olympics in Paris, newcomers — and their children born in Canada — often face barriers to accessing physical activities and sports.

Money, language, cultural differences, xenophobia and a lack of awareness of the resources available to the public all combine to keep newcomers on the sidelines, said Kabir Hosein, director of strategic initiatives at Sport for Life, a national non-profit dedicated to improving access to sports and physical literacy.

In addition to the health and wellness benefits, playing sports or even having the motivation, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to engage in an active lifestyle — the definition of physical literacy — is important for building relationships in your new community, he said.

Playing sports leads to “connections to your community, which leads to a sense of belonging,” Hosein said. “Especially for equity-deserving groups.”

If you migrated to a big city from a smaller population, the size of a sports and recreation facility may be overwhelming, Hosein added. If you don’t have immigration status in the country, you may not be able to access public recreation facilities at all.

Or perhaps the sport you want to play, maybe one popular back home or important to your culture, isn’t played here.

Even would-be coaches face barriers to participation in Canada, thanks to requirements for Canadian coaching certifications, Hosein said. Despite many Canadian athletic organizations being part of international bodies with their own requirements, international credentials that meet those requirements are not always accepted.

“Everyone says they’re being inclusive, but I have a different take on it,” Hosein said. “It seems like the emphasis is more on integration, where they want us to be Canadian, whereas we want to bring who we are, our culture, our ways, our norms, and contribute.”

Canada also doesn’t put as much emphasis on the availability of amateur sports for adults as it does for school-aged kids, Hosein noted. Nor is a game itself necessarily viewed the same way socially, where players and their loved ones enjoy food and conversation together after the match.

“Soccer is a very social sport in most countries,” Hosein said, adding that in Canadian sports leagues, it’s a “pay-to-play model, where you show up, you play and you go home. Not much social activities take place.

“That’s a big piece of that social connection that for many of the sports is not happening.”

Sports and safety solutions

DiverseCity Community Resources Society recently partnered with the Lifesaving Society of British Columbia and Yukon, as well as the municipalities of Surrey and Delta, to offer Swim to Survive, a 90-minute introduction to water safety for immigrants of all ages.

Swim to Survive is not swimming lessons. The program instead provides safety and survival tips on what to do should you fall into the water, such as learning how to roll onto your back, tread water for a minute and swim in any style for 50 metres.

Held during Drowning Prevention Week, July 21 to 27, the workshop is a DiverseCity pilot project and available to newcomers for free.

DiverseCity paid for translators to provide info and translation in Punjabi, Pashto, Mandarin, Arabic and Dari.

They also made accommodations for people whose culture or religion calls for gender segregation in sports.

“The Newton Wave Pool actually has a women and girls’ swim,” said Peterson, adding the pool drops curtains down to offer privacy.

“So we can make sure that we’re really reaching women and girls who are experiencing those barriers.”

Settlement workers at DiverseCity — or any organization that has settlement services — should be able to assist newcomers with signing up for swimming lessons and sports teams where barriers prevent newcomers from getting involved, Peterson said.

Last year Sport for Life, the Victoria Foundation and the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria went one step further by hiring recent immigrant youth to become sports mentors.

“The role of the mentor was to help families access sports,” said Todd Kitzler, acting immigrant and refugee services manager at the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria.

“The mentors would help the families to find supports, whether that be the local LIFE program in the city of Victoria, or through programs provided, [such as one from] Canadian Tire, that would help to pay for registration and/or equipment for the sports.”

Sport for Life also had funding available at the time for the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria to purchase sports equipment and gear for young immigrants.

This year there was no funding for the mentorship program. Instead the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria hired newcomer youth to lead the settlement agency’s summer camps for kids.

“Our experience last year was so positive — a lot of newcomer youth are hungry for these opportunities to become leaders, and especially for their own community, giving back to their own community,” Kitzler said.

“We’re seeing that again, a very positive response when we offered youth leadership roles for our summer camps this year.”

Adding cricket pitches

Hosein is starting to see barriers to newcomer sport participation come down where the focus is on inclusion, rather than on integration or assimilation. For example, Mississauga, Ontario, has been adding cricket pitches to city-run sports fields, instead of expecting cricketers to adapt to existing soccer, American football or baseball fields.

Cricket is especially popular with South Asian and U.K. diasporas. There are a few dedicated cricket pitches in B.C’s Lower Mainland. And there have been successful campaigns for dedicated cricket pitches in Terrace and Mission, B.C., too.

In addition to the work Sport for Life has done with organizations like the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria and DiverseCity, which partnered with the non-profit last year to provide eight-month YMCA memberships to over 40 newcomer youth, Sport for Life advocates for organizations that support newcomers and those that support access to sports and physical literacy skills, to create action plans for involving newcomers in these activities.

Its 2022 report, which outlined the barriers newcomers face, suggested potential solutions and encouraged organizations to partner together to create their own action plans for including newcomers in all physical fitness opportunities.

Involving newcomers and listening to their input is a must, Hosein added.

As the report notes, by 2030 immigration is expected to be the source for net population growth in Canada — meaning the participation of newcomers in amateur, recreational and professional athletics is essential to keep these programs alive and thriving.

“As we know in not only sport but in life, if you have an awful first experience, you’re not going to come back,” Hosein said.

“So for that first experience or experiences, the persons who are hosting those programs really need to understand a newcomer’s journey, and create that welcoming environment.”