"Loss was a shock" Princess Charlène wants to teach children to swim - for a sad reason
After a tragic loss in her childhood, Princess Charlène of Monaco is working with her foundation to ensure that children can learn to swim for free.
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- Princess Charlène of Monaco has been working with her foundation since 2014 to ensure that children around the world can learn to swim for free.
- Her commitment is driven by the early death of her cousin, who drowned at the age of five.
- With programs such as "Live to Swim", her foundation has already reached over one million people in 43 countries.
Princess Charlène of Monaco has made it her mission to enable children to learn to swim - free of charge. Her mission is linked to a stroke of fate from her childhood that shook her to the core: "The loss was a shock for our whole family, and the pain will never completely disappear," Charlène explains in an interview with the French newspaper Ouest-France.
Her cousin Richard drowned in a river near her uncle's house when he was just five years old.
Charlène learned to swim herself at the age of three, as her mother worked as a swimming instructor in South Africa.
Today, she works with her foundation to ensure that learning to swim is seen as a basic right, similar to learning to read.
The traumatic experiences of her childhood seem to motivate her to continue her mission. Her own children, Jacques and Gabriella, learned to swim at an early age. An incident in 2018, in which Gabriella almost fell into a pool, made Charlène realize the importance of this skill once again. She reacted in time and was able to prevent worse.
Princess Charlène has been involved with her foundation since 2014
Since its establishment in 2014, the Princesse Charlène de Monaco Foundation has reached over one million people and is active in 43 countries. Princess Charlène emphasizes that water should be a place of joy, not suffering, and she works tirelessly to make this vision a reality.
Charlène of Monaco was a successful swimmer who competed internationally for South Africa. She celebrated her greatest sporting success in 2000 with the South African 4x100-meter freestyle relay team, which came fifth at the Olympic Games in Sydney.
