Olympic champion Alain Bernard, his girlfriend and world-class freestyler Coralie Balmy, and Olympic and world breaststroke medallist Hugues Duboscq, among other worthies from the French swimming community, will help the French Swimming Federation (FFN) and partner France UNICEF, the local arm of the worldwide children's charity, raise awareness of water and its critical importance to life on earth at a festival on Saturday called Night of Water.
The event is timed to coincide with World Water Day, to be observed next Monday, March 22. You can take a peek at the French federation programme here. The event is backed by EDF, the French power company. All funds will go to helping underprivileged children around the world, the focus to provide them with clean drinking water, lack of which accounts for more deaths than ought to be fathomable in a world that considers itself modern, civilised and rich in intelligence, resources and technological advances.
At 6pm on Saturday as events get underway at the Georges Vallerey pool in Paris, on the site of the 1924 Olympic Games that made Johnny Weissmuller a household name back home before he became a household name as Tarzan around the world, 200 French swim clubs will take part in a network of aquatic festivals around France in support of the children of Togo.
LEN, the European swimming league, is also involved in a partnership with UNICEF.
