Swimming to support vulnerable groups

One local resident has set himself the challenge of swimming around much of the island to raise awareness of the environmental cost of refugees, and more. MELISSA HEKKERS meets him

A 280-kilometre stretch of Cyprus’ coastline will be Julien Mevel’s sole company for 25 days and for a minimum of four hours a day as he seeks to swim around much of the island to raise awareness of underprivileged groups and the environment as a whole.

Inspired by a friend who spent three years preparing for and eventually crossing the Pacific Ocean on a Kayak, Mevel took matters into his own hands nearer to home.

“His project was very inspiring for me and at some point I thought that instead of just following him I should also do something myself,” says Mevel from his Nicosia home. Originally from Brittany, France, it was during the pandemic, in July 2021, that he realised what he could do. “As I was swimming in Larnaca, it suddenly became extremely obvious to me that I wanted to swim around this island. I wasn’t sure whether this had been done before and I felt very comfortable with the idea of dedicating a month to swim from Kato Pyrgos all the way to Larnaca”.

Being a businessman in international trading for over two decades, realigning both his professional and personal life is now his driving force. “After all these years in international trade, turning 40, Covid as well as my own personal questions that began two to three years ago, I began rethinking about the way I live,” admits Mevel. “Not to the point that I’m against what I was doing for so many years, but questioning what I was doing in the sense that international trade is about shipping things in massive containers from one place of the world to the other and in terms of ecology that’s not the best thing you can do; it’s capitalism… making money from trade which is also something that I question more and more. That’s when I decided to reorient my life,” he adds. “So it’s a mixture of many factors but very simply put, we’re on this planet for a very short time and we should do things that really interest us… realise our own capacity to dream of something and then with a lot of good will, implement it.”

As the start date of April 2 for the swim challenge draws near, Mevel is dedicating several hours a day to training as he also brings together causes he aspires to put in the limelight. “Indirectly this is definitely a personal quest but in order to make it more useful, I wanted to get a few charities on board,” he says. “Not for a minute did I imagine just doing this by myself and it was clear to me that there had to be charities involved and bring in help to emphasise two causes,” he adds.

The local NGO Generation for Change will benefit from Mevel’s gofund.me campaign. “This organisation is doing amazing work and the money given to them is extremely efficient, it goes straight to the people who actually need it, it’s not eaten up for the organisation itself and I really like that,” says Mevel. More importantly is the organisation’s focus on challenged minorities. “The fact that the organisation doesn’t just focus on one group, they really try to make a difference for whoever is discriminated against or suffers from poverty and I really appreciate that. Personally, I believe that there is not one cause over another, whether you’re helping someone with a disease or somebody who is suffering from racism or somebody who just has problems with money, it’s all the same. And this charity is trying to help on all these levels.”

The other aspect of the project is the sea. “There are many challenges related to the sea, like refugee crisis, the environment, so we’re organising two beach cleaning events along the route, and a conference a week after I finish where a couple of experts will discuss the relation between the refugee crisis and global warming which is a huge issue coming up for us this century,” he adds.

An avid sportsman who has up to this point never challenged himself to such an extent, Mevel plans on swimming four to five hours a day for 25 days, with a couple of days break, accompanied by a friend who will drive his van and wait for him at the end of each day. “One of the days I will be swimming around the Akamas Peninsula where my van will not have access to stop and sleep in it, so that day I will carry my tent on the board with me and I will stop and camp somewhere on my own and be like Robinson Crusoe for one night,” Mevel says, “all the other nights I’ll be able to sleep in the van, or camp, so its going to be an adventure but quite a comfortable one,” he concludes.

One hundred per cent of money raised through his gofundme.com campaign (https://gofund.me/6bd5d95f) will go to Generation for Change CY https://www.facebook.com/generationforchangeCY. The two beach cleans taking place as part of the project will be at Curium on April 17 and Finkoudes on April 30, while a conference will be held a week after the end of the challenge with a panel of experts to raise awareness on climate change, economically-deprived groups (including but not limited to asylum seekers), and the link between these two issues. More information about Mevel’s swim tour can be found on https://www.facebook.com/CyprusSwimTour/