Why we want to help…

A remembrance about beloved Sheillah

On June 3rd, 2020, our loving Nanny, Sheillah, went swimming in our pool with our 2 young children. It was no different to what they might do any other day ...except that day she drowned.

In a matter of minutes, that day became the worst day of our lives.

When I ran down to the pool, Sheillah was being pulled out by two neighbours and my children were screaming for Sheillah to open her eyes. This had been going on for over 4 minutes before Sheillah and the children were found by neighbours.

Our children, our community and Sheillah’s friends and family have been deeply affected and saddened by what happened that day and will continue to mourn the loss of their beautiful friend, sister and daughter.  Sheillah had one of the kindest and most beautiful souls of anyone we’d ever met. Not a day goes by where we don’t all miss her or where our own children don’t ask about her.

We truly lost a loving member of our family and community that Wednesday afternoon…

This was a horrific and tragic accident that could have been avoided.

We really do believe Sheillah felt confident in her swimming abilities, however, as we know, without specific water safety skills, and proper swim instruction, the water can be a very dangerous place for anyone. We must start the conversation amongst our community, that while people may hold swimming knowledge, swimming safety and water confidence are very different elements that can, not only put ourselves,  but others at risk. 

We don’t know why we had to lose someone as special as Sheillah to make us realize how dangerous water can be and how important it is to become confident and strong swimmers when we live in a country surrounded by water. But what we do know is, that while our children were spared that day, Sheillah lost her life, and for that very reason, as a community, we must come together to prevent another person from losing their life to water. We need to help each other become aware of the dangers of not knowing water safety skills to ensure from now on, we do not put ourselves, our children or anyone in our community at risk.

Sheillah was a daughter, a sister, an aunt and a friend. She was 29 years old and she had a vision and a promising and full future ahead of her. What happened to her was unfair.  We will never forget her, and we hope together, we can all work hard to not let her death go in vain. 

For all those reasons we have created the registered non profit organization, “The Swim For Sheillah Charitable Trust”. We hope to bring awareness and to sponsor and provide the funding to offer free swimming assessments and heavily subsidized swim lessons to any Helpers/Nannies that would like to assess their swimming level and strengths, and continue on to become confident and strong swimmers. 

Awareness is the first step towards making the people in Cayman safer.

Please help me be a part of this movement so that no other families have to experience what Sheillah’s family has had to experience.  

If you are a caregiver, nanny, or helper and would like to have your swimming abilities assessed or if you would like to have your helper's swimming abilities assessed, please click the button above.

We welcome and appreciate any donations to help us further develop this program. Any amount can make a difference and is greatly appreciated.