Belgravia Foundation Aotearoa

Belgravia Foundation Aotearoa has been created to reduce barriers to participation in community sport, aquatic, fitness, recreation and health programs for our most disadvantaged and under-represented groups within the community. Their goal is to help New Zealanders have greater access to the physical activities we cherish as a country.

Belgravia Foundations' purpose and passion is to connect ALL to leisure, recreation, fitness, health, aquatics and community sport so everyone can live healthy and happy lives, so no one misses out.

Part of this initiative is working alongside SwimmingNZ, supporting vision-impaired kids to access learn-to-swim camps. Team NZBLUE’s plan is to raise money for Belgravia Foundation which will use the funding to help SwimmingNZ pay for the delivery costs of these camps, while also assisting to find the instructors.

100% of the funds will go directly into running the camps which will change the lives of these children by giving them further opportunities.

Even though these camps are relatively new, Swimming NZ is planning to facilitate these camps every six months in different locations across the country due to the incredible feedback.

“I don’t think you quite realise it, but you’re totally changing people’s lives”.

This was feedback SwimmingNZ (SNZ) received from a parent after taking part in their vision impairment-specific “Summer Camp” IN Auckland a few months ago.

Blind Sport NZ Community and Programmes Lead, Jemma Drake, agreed the camp was a great starting point for the future of the swimmers with vision impairment.

“The confidence of each of the swimmers grew even with the short amount time we spent together over the weekend. I’m incredibly proud of each of them for diving into the deep with new experiences like the bush work and paddling."
“We look forward to developing these camps further to provide more opportunity for our community. We also hope the relationships made between participants and families will continue to thrive far beyond the camp.”

Swimming NZ were blown away by the positive experiences had by participants in a camp setting based around simple concepts – having fun, being social and creating organic connection between participants and families.

NZBLUE understands the true importance of this cause, so we have chosen Belgravia foundation as one of their charities to support our Race Across America ultra-endurance race.