One Ilfracombe is seeking sponsors to continue their successful Into The Blue project, which provides lessons for almost 200 local children to provide them with free waterborne activities, sea awareness and safety sessions.
Running since April, Into The Blue has seen partners at Ilfracombe Juniors, local activity providers (Coastal Swim Coaching, H2Outdoors, Active Escapes), Ilfracombe RNLI and the Ilfracombe Watersports Hub pull together to get local children into water safely to learn, develop and purposefully play for the benefit of their physical and mental wellbeing. It is delivered as part of the school curriculum, and must be free of charge whilst ensuring all the children are present, participating, achieving and supported.
Partially funded by North Devon Council through an allocation of government's Shared Prosperity Fund, organisers One Ilfracombe are asking for organisations to come forward to sponsor the project to enable it to continue when current funding expires later this month.
One Ilfracombe Project Officer Neil Ingram said: “We have loved delivering this project, which was initially borne from discussions at the Ilfracombe Futures Forum back in late 2024, and focused on local children being able to create a sense of belonging and ownership of the town where they live.
"Contrary to popular belief, not all children born by the coast are water babies. Fear of the water, coupled with a lack of sea awareness and knowledge can make the sea a dangerous place, but this doesn't need to be the case. It has been wonderful to see them develop and the laughter levels have been off the chart! We have had fantastic support to get this year's Into The Blue up and running, but now we need more funding to make this project sustainable so more of our local children can benefit.”
Harbourmaster Georgina Carlo-Paat says: "Water safety is so much more than just knowing how to swim in a swimming pool; learning how to swim in cold water and how your body responds to changing temperatures, learning about the local tides and how they can sweep you out to sea, learning how to get out of trouble when on a paddleboard or kayak are all part of the skills the children have been learning with Into The Blue. The most wonderful thing has been the sound of laughter coming from Larkstone Cove as the children learn not to be afraid of the water, and gain the skills and knowledge to keep themselves and others safe."
Into The Blue has given every Year 5 and 6 pupil at Ilfracombe Junior School the opportunity of taking part in some amazing activities built into their weekly lessons.
Delivered over a rolling six week period that started on Tuesday 22 April and runs until Friday 13 June at the Ilfracombe Watersports Hub, activities include:
- sea safety and awareness
- Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP)
- mega SUP
- coasteering
- kayaking
- team building activities
A large proportion of the £28,000 required to run the project came from grant funding from The Children's Alliance and Fullabrook Community Interest Company, with additional funding from Active Devon and North Devon Council.
The project has been delivered by the “resident” local service providers at the Ilfracombe Watersports Hub, One Ilfracombe's "Into The Blue Crew". They are Allie Kaufman and Terri Ingram at Coastal Swim Coaching, Matt De Havilland at H2Outdoor, and Dan Northcott at Active Escape Adventure. Shore-based team building sessions have also been provided by Stuart Carpenter and the crew at Ilfracombe RNLI.
Funding dependant, it is intended to continue to run the project on at least an annual basis for local year five students, as well as exploring the opportunities to deliver Into The Blue to local children of the same age range who are not currently in permanent education.
For more information about Into the Blue, or to express an interest in providing funding to next year's project, please contact Neil Ingram neil.ingram@northdevon.gov.uk or Charmain Lovett charmain.lovett@northdevon.gov.uk