🏊 2026 Swim Serpentine
Thank you very much for your interest in swimming with Whisper in Swim Serpentine 🥇on Saturday 19 September 2026!
Registration for the 2026 event has now closed for all charities. We expect to have charity places again next year so you're welcome to apply in advance for next year. There's also an excellent chance of getting your own general entry (non-charity) place for next year if you go to the Swim Serpentine event website just after this year's event and sign up to the organisers' mailing list. Come and see us at this year's event; it's a fun day out.
Whisper offers you and your supporters a cause where even small donations can be life-changing ✨. We're a very high-impact charity that funds Whisper's Magical Children's Hospital 🏥, a maternity unit 🤰🏾, an ambulance 🚑 and a nursing school 🎓 in Jinja, Uganda. We run on an annual donation budget of around £250,000. Every £20 donated allows us to treat a child, an average that includes some lengthy inpatient stays 🤒. We estimate that every £318 donated saves a life that would not otherwise have been saved 🧸. Outside Uganda we're entirely staffed by volunteers 💖, helping donations go further.
Swim Serpentine is an annual swimming event 🏆 that takes place in the Serpentine lake 🦆 in London's Hyde Park. It's a pleasant day out even as a spectator 🥳; tell your friends! You can find out more about the event on the official site. There are several available distances:
| Distance | Equivalent in lengths of a 25m pool |
|---|---|
| Half mile | 32 |
| One mile | 64 |
| Two miles | 129 |
| Six miles (not offered by Whisper) | 386 |
For comparison, a two mile swim takes less time than a half marathon 🏃 and takes less energy, but efficient technique ⏱️ is important for a swim. A six mile swim is similar to a marathon in time and energy.
In return for a place we'd like you to donate or commit to raising at least £150 (Half Mile), £200 (One Mile) or £300 (Two Miles) for us. We have optional corporate matched giving 🎁 available which can significantly help you to reach these targets.
Let's take a quick tour 👀 of some of the things we do. This is Whisper's hospital; the hospital opened on another site in 2016 and moved to this building in 2018:
This is the ambulance in front of the hospital:
This is one of our operating theatres:
This is our delivery room in the maternity unit:
This is a lecture in our nursing school, which has 40 nurses in its latest intake:
We can offer you:
- personal attention - we're a small organisation 🙏
- no registration fee
- advice and practical help with fundraising
I cannot tell you how inspiring this charity is. They do incredible work. I am raising money for Whisper but the support I am getting from them is fantastic. I have never had this before when raising money for charity. a previous runner in the London Marathon
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