The traditional Travesía Brazadas Solidarias Acantilados will not be held this year due to the pandemic. Instead, the ‘Spain-India Swim Tour’ will be carried out by private swimmers during the month of August.
The Rincón de la Victoria Town Hall and the Brazadas Solidarias Association, linked to the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, have today launched the challenge of the swimming season with the ‘Brazadas Solidarias España-India 2020’.
The challenge called on all swimmers with a spirit of solidarity to swim during August and cover the 8,350 kilometers that connect both countries by sea and, with the help of the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, help the people who are suffering most from the Covid-19 pandemic in the most impoverished areas of rural India.
Rincón de la Victoria will not be celebrating its traditional Cliffside Solidarity Stroll this year due to the situation as a result of the Covid-19. Instead, it will take up this solidarity challenge by calling on all these swimmers to help the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, sister NGO of Brazadas Solidarias, due to the extremely serious situation India is experiencing as a result of the pandemic.
The long-distance corner swimmer and founder of Brazadas Solidarias, Christian Jongeneel, has stressed that this is “the most important challenge of the organization in its ten years of existence”. “Not only because of the distance, because we want to add up those 8,350 kilometers, which is a lot and for which we need the participation of thousands of swimmers, but also because the situation of millions of people in rural India is desperate. We have the urgency to act in the best way that we know how,” said Jongeneel, who will be the first to open the challenge from Rincon de la Victoria by swimming along the municipality’s coastline on the 1st of August.
To participate, swimmers must register on the Brazadas Solidarias website (www.brazadassolidarias.com) and, during the month of August, record on the same website the meters that the have been swimming in private pools, rivers, reservoirs or beaches anywhere in the world. The contribution is voluntary, from 5 euros to any other amount.
The funds collected will be used to distribute food to migrants and the population that has become unemployed, to set up spaces for Covid-19 in the Foundation’s hospitals, to manufacture and distribute masks, hydro-alcohol gels and gloves to professionals, and to organize activities to raise awareness among the rural population about the prevention of the spread of the disease in India.
India is already the third country in the world with the most people infected by the new coronavirus, with about 1.5 million cases. The country has not managed to stop the spread of the disease despite declaring in March the world’s largest containment of its 1.3 billion people population.
In this context, the Vicente Ferrer Foundation is working with all its resources on different fronts: the distribution of food to children and groups at risk; health care for Covid-19 patients in its hospitals; the manufacture and distribution of health material; and training and raising awareness among the population about the risks of the virus.