Willem Young – Swimming for a Cause

Willem Young is a 15 year old who loves being active. For the past 3 years, Willem has been communicating with orphans from the royal seed home in Casoa Ghana thanks to a wonderful program at Island Pacific School on Bowen Island. It was the beginning of last year when Willem and his two friends, Angus and Luke, found out that when they went off to high school in grade 10 their friends across the globe most likely wouldn’t be. This bothered them. How could that be?

They found out that unless their pen pals were privately sponsored, they could not continue with their schooling and would most likely have to work in manual labor for the rest of their lives. Being an avid swimmer Willem, who had always wanted to swim his commute to school (North Vancouver to Bowen Island) came up with an idea. A triathlon.

This triathlon would include a 41km bike ride from deep cove to white cliff park, then a 4km swim from white cliff park to the sandy beach in Bowen island, and then a 12.5km run up Mt.Gardener on Bowen island and back to Island Pacific school. They then spent the remainder of the year planning, training and collecting donations for their event.

On May 24th of last year Tri 4 Ghana happened raising an amazing $40,000 to send 10 kids to high school for the full high school cycle.

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