About Us

Swimming in Vanuatu did not begin with pools, pathways, or press coverage — it began the way most things grow here: through community resolve and solutions shaped for our realities. Our earliest programmes were born inside Wan Smol Bag, supported by its youth centre, office space, and a belief that local young people deserved access to life-saving aquatic skills. When a pool was needed, partners helped us build one. When instructors were needed, volunteers stepped up. When children needed access, schools reshaped their timetables. Every step grew from Vanuatu’s own rhythms, constraints, and strengths — never from an imported model.

From these beginnings, Vanuatu’s first ni-Vanuatu–run Learn to Swim programmes emerged in 2014, followed by the formal establishment of the Vanuatu Aquatics Federation (VAF) as the national federation under World Aquatics in 2015. By 2016, VAF introduced the country’s first floating sea pool with the support of BRED Bank — an innovation that allowed Vanuatu, even without a land-based pool, to run 25m and 50m competitions with proper turns, lanes, and officiation.

Progress accelerated quickly. By 2018, Vanuatu was competing at the Oceania Championships. By 2019, our athletes were racing on the World Championships stage. Through community-built venues, trained local instructors, the introduction of water polo, open-water races, and partnerships across VASANOC, Oceania Aquatics, the Australian Government’s Team Up programme, and local schools and chiefs, VAF built a pathway that reached children across Efate and the offshore islands — all without a single permanent swimming pool.

Then, in 2024, Vanuatu made history: for the first time ever, ni-Vanuatu athletes walked onto the Olympic pool deck.

In 2025, VAF reached another historic milestone with the establishment of the country’s first public swimming hub — a modest but transformative above-ground training pool and changing facility donated by supporters and hosted in partnership with the Vanuatu Tennis Federation. This hub now enables structured Learn to Swim, junior squad training, water-safety education, disability-inclusive sessions, and cross-federation development to operate consistently in Port Vila for the first time in national history.

Here, swimming has grown in a way that makes sense for Vanuatu — grounded in community, strengthened by collaboration and shaped for the realities of island life. It has been — and will always be — about community, safety, and national pride. We’ve built a pathway that fits our people, our islands, and our future.

Today, VAF delivers free Learn to Swim, water safety programs, youth leadership through water polo, open-water competitions, and a growing high-performance pathway that takes ni-Vanuatu athletes from grassroots to the world stage. Our movement continues to be guided by safety, inclusion, national pride, and a commitment to building aquatic opportunities that fit our people, our islands, and our future.