Music To Our Ears, Charity Swims By Carina Bruwer

Courtesy of Carina Bruwer, Alicante – Tabarca, Spain.

South Africa musician and swimmer plans 21 km charity swim in Spain in support of Muzukidz

Carina Bruwer, an internationally renowned contemporary flute player and founding member of the SAMA award-winning instrumental group Sterling EQ, will attempt to swim 21 km from Alicante to Tabarca Island in Spain, site of the Travesia Media Maraton de Tabarca.

Her swim is in support of Muzukidz, an organization where children from poor township families around Cape Town are given the opportunity to learn to play the violin.  Her Swim For Hope will take place on June 13th, a day before she will perform a solo Jazz flute concert in Alicante, at Suquer in the region of Elche.

Bruwer founded Swim For Hope in 2014 in order to raise funds and awareness for South African organizations that she supports through her open water swimming challenges. The project has raised close to R500,000 (US$33,581) since its inception.

Bruwer, named as one of the World’s Top 50 Most Adventurous Open Water Women in 2015 and 2018, won the 15 km Gran Fondo Cinque Terre finishing third overall. She also plans to take part in the 12 km Marnaton EDreams St Feliu de Guixols, one of the largest races in Spain, after her concert.

“The Alicante-Tabarca Swim For Hope is my main focus, as it forms part of an important connection that the Swim For Hope beneficiary, Muzukidz, has with Spain, where a number of Suzuki violin schools support the organisation from fundraising and instrument donations,” explained Bruwer.

Founded by violinist and teacher Maria Botha in 2015, Muzukidz offers violin tuition to dozens of children from various townships around Cape Town. Using the Suzuki method, children from as young as the age of 3 are taught in groups as well as in individual sessions; some of them as regularly as 5 times per week.  The children get to perform in little concerts and bigger events, and take part in various Muzukidz related activities that are both enriching and offer valuable opportunities for the children as well as their families.

Francisco Canada, a Suzuki teacher from Madrid, has recently move his life to Cape Town to teach with Muzukidz on a permanent basis, so the funds we raise will go towards creating a feasible and realistic job for him with Muzukidz, which would allow for more children to be able to join Muzukidz.

“When I swim in the open water and I get into my ‘zone’, I often experience a beautiful state of clarity, where the world makes sense to me and I feel enormously optimistic and filled with hope.  I realise that I am hugely fortunate to be able to experience moments like this while so many people in this world are limited by their circumstances – certainly most people in South Africa – so Swim For Hope is all about sharing this optimism and spreading this feeling of hope that I experience in the open water,” said Bruwer.

“Muzukidz is the perfect beneficiary, as I truly believe in empowering South Africans and growing South Africa through education, and being more of a performer than a teacher myself, I was delighted to discover this amazing organisation as it represented everything I was hoping to support as a musician. I believe that giving a child the opportunity to learn a musical instrument goes way beyond the ability to make music or the possibility of being a musician one day.

Music stimulates the brain in a very special way; in fact studies have shown that children who do 14 months of musical training displayed more powerful structural and functional brain changes. Imagine what this can do for a young child who comes from a poor background and who has limited opportunities and a limited support structure. I am convinced that organizations like Muzukidz are helping to mould our future leaders, inventors and change makers.”

Live updates from the water on the day of the swim, all information and a donation platform are available on www.carina.co.za.

For more information, visit www.sterlingeq.co.za and Muzukidz, or Facebook or Instagram.  To donate, visit here.

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