How a Swimming for Peace Uplifted the Collective Spirit of a Community in Colombia

I can recall with perfect clarity key sporting moments from my childhood. The unbridled joy of watching Susie O’Neill win gold in the 200 meter butterfly at the 1996 Atlanta games. The suspense of Susie Maroney’s historic Cuba to Florida swim. The magic of sport leaves a lasting legacy. Yet too often, sport remains out of reach for underprivileged and conflict-affected communities. Growing up in Australia, I had access to facilities, coaches, athletes, and events that made it easy for me to dream of being a great athlete. I cannot imagine who I would be in all areas of my life without that inspiration. Seeing thousands of people feeling inspired in Colombia after I swam 40 kilometers for peace and resilience was one of the proudest moments of my life.

I met Hugo Tovar, Open Society Foundations’ director of the security and rights work, by chance while visiting the Open Society London office as a grantee. The week before, I had swum the English Channel, and as all channel swimmers are inclined to do, I found a way to slip it into the conversation. 

“You should come and do a swim in my hometown in Colombia,” he said. I, of course, agreed, but didn’t expect anything to come of it. 

Three months later I ran into Hugo again at an event in New York. “We have to talk about your swim,” he pushed. The previous month I had completed an historic 92 kilometer swim from Italy to Albania. My grandfather was from Albania and had to flee in the 1940s. Our family’s connection to its heritage had been severed by this dark chapter in Albania’s history, and I saw the swim as a chance for me to forge my own bond with the country. 

After the swim, it became apparent that it held meaning beyond my personal pursuit. The symbolism of a member of the Albanian diaspora swimming to Albania across the stretch of water for decades used as an escape route resonated deeply with people.  

“It was a swim for democracy,” one person told me. “It showed that times have changed and that stretch of water is no longer a place of just tragedy.” 

Hugo and I met, and he outlined his vision. The swim could be used to highlight the work of civil society groups supported by Open Society, who are leading anti-violence initiatives. Buenaventura, located on Colombia’s largest port, has been heavily impacted by the decades long conflict. While I hadn’t worked in Colombia, my career has largely focused on conflict-affected communities, and I felt an immediate solidarity with these groups. Their earnest desire to forge a new path for their communities, standing for peace with character and resilience, mirrored my own convictions. The swim was envisioned as a vehicle to celebrate this spirit in a new campaign: “Forces of Inspiration.” 

A team was assembled, and we planned a 40 kilometer route from Juanchaco to Buenaventura town, estimating a 10 to 12 hour swim. 

The week before the event Colombia was struck by a series of attacks by armed actors including in Buenaventura and the nearby city of Cali. The Australian embassy reached out and advised me not to travel to Buenaventura. We endured a few anxious days assessing the situation. However, I resolved that as long as the local civil society groups felt it was safe and appropriate for the event to proceed, I would still swim. Now was not the time to shy away from messages of peace and resilience. 

I arrived in a sunny but tense Buenaventura. I did media interviews to promote the swim and visited a swimming school to watch a group of young athletes train. While I’m not entirely comfortable with extensive pre-swim publicity in case the swim isn’t a success, we aimed to amplify the message that this swim was about celebrating resilience. It’s crucial to understand that success in these distances is never a given. Many factors can go wrong, particularly as this route had never been swum before. The primary unknown was how the tides and currents would impact my progress. Doubts lingered, especially as the swim passed through the notoriously rough stretch of water known as el paso de tigre (“the mouth of the tiger”).

The swim was a beast. We started in the dark at 2:00 a.m., flanked by drums and an armed escort, under seemingly calm conditions. After the first hour I had swum only two kilometers when I should have covered twice that. The second hour I was picked up by a strong current and surged forward six kilometers. Now it was back to a 10 hour swim. By the third hour a thunderstorm began, and I was swimming in torrential rain and huge swells that made my support boats momentarily disappear. 

“This is a bit dramatic,” I quipped to my support crew. 

By the fourth hour I had gone backward two kilometers.  

And so, the swim continued—erratic and unpredictable like no other I had done. But I plodded along, stroke by stroke. The sun rose, a pod of dolphins appeared, I passed through the el paso de tigre and finally found the inward-bound tide to pull me toward the finish. I climbed a set of slippery rocks to mark the end of the swim. 

What came next was a complete surprise. My Albania swim had ended with me clinging to a rock face at 5:00 a.m., bobbing for a moment before making my way back to the boat and immediately falling asleep. This time, as the support boat transported me back to the Malecón at Buenaventura, a huge crowd had gathered around the harbor, cheering and waving. I was ushered onto a stage where I was treated to music performances and an awards ceremony. In the days following, I couldn’t walk down the street without being surrounded by people thanking me, congratulating me, and wanting a selfie. 

There was a palpable energy in the air. People were excited to tell me their own stories of triumph: The woman training for a marathon after her doctor encouraged exercise following a breast cancer diagnosis, the young boy who wrote me a letter telling me of his dream to become the best swimmer in the world, and the civil society groups who were being recognized for their tireless resilience.  

The swim served as a circuit breaker from Buenaventura’s narrative of violence. The city was in the news across Colombia not for tragedy, but for triumph and celebration. In days following the swim, even hotel occupancy increased by 40 percent. 

Never had I imagined this would be the impact, but it is deeply humbling to do something that brings people joy, particularly with a talent as obscure as my beloved, yet admittedly odd, ability to swim absurd distances. When I reflect on the power sport has had on my life, if this event has given people a tiny fraction of the inspiration that fed me, it will indeed be a powerful force for change.