Team Dream Sistas is the women's program of Team Dream Swim Club — a Chicago institution on a mission to close the water gap for communities of color. Fourteen years. 1,400 sistas. One circle that keeps getting wider.
When I started Team Dream in 2012, I didn't set out to build a swim club. I set out to address a statistic that I couldn't unsee: Black children drown at three times the rate of white children in this country. Black adults, twice the rate. Behind every one of those numbers is a story about pools we weren't allowed in, beaches we were turned away from, and a fear that gets passed down through generations.
The water wasn't kept from us by accident. It was kept from us by law, by violence, by neglect. And the work of getting it back has to be just as deliberate.
Sistas was born from that work. From the women who showed up to our adult learn-to-swim sessions and decided they didn't just want to survive the water, they wanted to own it. From the sister who completed her first open-water mile at 58 and turned to me afterwards and said, "I want to go faster." From the realization that what we were calling a swim club was actually something bigger: a sisterhood, a school, a return.
Every sista who joins us is welcomed into that lineage. Twelve seats per cohort because we know your name. Four seasons a year because the work doesn't stop. The same coaches, the same lanes, the same questions waiting for you every Monday morning.
We don't promise to make you a faster swimmer, though most sistas leave faster than they came. We promise to teach you to belong in the water. That's the bigger thing. That's the dream.
Team Dream Swim Club exists to reduce drowning deaths and close health disparities for people of color in the United States. Our work begins in the pool but is rooted in the longer history that put us there: generations of legal segregation from public swimming, the closing of municipal pools rather than integration, beach violence, and a chronic underinvestment in water safety education in Black and brown communities.
The Centers for Disease Control reports that Black children ages 5 to 14 drown in swimming pools at rates 7.6 times higher than white children. Among adults, Black Americans drown at nearly twice the national average. Fewer than 40% of Black adults can perform a basic water survival skill. These aren't numbers about ability. They're numbers about access.
Our work spans learn-to-swim programs for children, masters swimming for adults, coach development for instructors of color, and Sistas — a premiere training circle for women who are ready to claim the water as theirs.
The premiere swim circle for women. Twelve seats per cohort, four seasons a year. You're here.
Open enrollment masters-style swim group for adult swimmers of all levels. Multiple weekly sessions.
Drowning prevention and learn-to-swim for children. Built for kids who've never had access to a pool.
Training and certification for swimming coaches of color. Closing the representation gap on the pool deck.
Competitive masters swimming for adults pursuing race goals and personal bests.
Free community swim education in Chicago Public Schools and neighborhood partnerships.
Ann E. Smith, 82, and Madeline Murphy Rabb, 76, train with Team Dream for the National Senior Games. A documentary on race, water, age, and the dreams that don't retire.
Directed by Misha Neal. Featuring Derrick Q. Milligan. 18 minutes. Released 2022. Official Selection, Cannes 2024.