‘We were afraid of the ocean… Now we're lifesavers!'

Meet the incredible all-Afghan, all-female lifesaving team

- Emma Levett

The water-filled her nose and mouth as Sahar Ehsani flailed about, trying to remember what her instructors had told her about kicking her legs and moving her arms.

“It was so difficult,” Sahar, now 18, tells Woman’s Day. “I’d been doing swimming classes for a year, but I was getting discouraged. I couldn’t do it and at one point I wanted to give up.”

Sahar, who was born in Afghanistan, had fled from Pakistan to Melbourne in 2018. There, she and her family were faced with a very different kind of life. “It was too dangerous to go to the beach in Pakistan,” she says. “And in Muslim culture, it’s unusual for women to swim. The boys would go to the pool, but never me and my sisters.

“The first time I actually went to the beach, I had the impression it would be scary, but it was beautiful. I put my feet in the water and it felt really amazing.”