Stunning success for women’s slide night at WaterMarc
In response to keen community interest, on Saturday night 27th November, WaterMarc held a Women’s Only Slide Night in partnership with the Belgravia Foundation and Banyule City Council. The fun-filled event was for Women of all ages, abilities and cultural backgrounds.
The event was particularly targeted towards local women of Somali heritage for whom cultural and religious reasons require the windows to be covered to ensure privacy. Staff members from both WaterMarc and Banyule City Council volunteered their time on Saturday afternoon and evening to cover all of the windows around the aqua space for this event to go ahead – a mammoth but very worthwhile task!
We had a total of 14 staff and volunteers from WaterMarc, work together with 5 volunteers from Banyule Council, to host the night for a whopping 330 participants!
Together, WaterMarc and Belgravia Foundation, identified a community access gap at WaterMarc preventing Somali women utilising the aqua hall, slides and pool facilities. Many attended on the night commented that this was the first time they had ever used a local pool or waterslides, and welcomed the support to enable access to this very enjoyable experience.
“I don’t remember that last time I went to the pools, I had so much fun! We need this women’s only slide night to become a more permanent thing at WaterMarc! I was comfortable and felt very safe, I left the event feeling very relaxed and rejuvenated. The staff were helpful and very respectful, we all felt very welcomed! Please hurry up already and book in our next women’s only slide night!” – participant Fahima Ali.
"The night was a huge success with many asking when the next one is. Such an amazing event to be apart of and proud to have been apart of it. Look forward to making this happen again in the near future!" said WaterMarc Operations manager, Maddison Kowal
There was a lot of excitement for this event and the facility already had a queue out the door from 7:00pm. This vibrant event was fully booked, and our facility was filled with big smiles and warm hearts.
From the generous effort of the local community, WaterMarc and the Belgravia Foundation were able to raise over $1,100 on the night. In line with the approach of Belgravia Foundation, all of this money – 100% - will be reserved to support future projects that will improve access to swimming activities, waterslide nights and other recreational events in the local area.
