Enter four ANU students and young professionals determined to make it safer.

Annie Gao, Clare McBride-Kelly, Andrew Nolan and Liam McBride-Kelly are united by a mutual friend from the refugee community, who tragically drowned last year at a freshwater site in Canberra.

In honour of their friend, the group has created the Refugee and Migrant Swimming Project, a not-for-profit initiative to teach water safety and swimming skills to Canberra's growing refugee and migrant population.

"Deaths like our friend's are entirely preventable in cities that have culturally informed and accessible swimming lessons for refugees and migrants. Canberra is the only capital city in Australia that does not offer such programs," Ms McBride-Kelly said.

"I feel like that's a real critical gap in the ACT because people don't realise freshwater sites are some of the deadliest swimming destinations in Australia.

"For every $130 raised, that will cover one person to undertake 10 weeks of swimming and water safety lessons which helps someone go from likely drowning if they fell in the water to confidently swimming recreationally."

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Data from the Royal Life Saving Society showed that between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2019, there were 572 water-related migrant deaths which accounted for 29 per cent of total drowning deaths in Australia during this period.

The study found on average 57 migrants drowned in Australia each year, with the ACT recording four deaths in the past 12 months.

The Refugee and Migrant Swimming Project aims to have its first pilot event in January, which co-founder Annie Gao says has already received significant support and interest.

"So far there has been 115 expressions of interest, so there's definitely a demand in the community for this sort of thing," Ms Gao said.

"We don't want this to be something that runs for a year or two and then have it stop, so we'd really like to explore as many avenues as we can to give it longevity. Funding ideas are being drafted and we are already been getting lots of support from organisations to make sure the Canberra program will have the necessary structures."

Royal Life Saving ACT is one of the organisations playing a big role in making sure this program has the structural mechanisms necessary, with CEO of the ACT branch Cherry Bailey saying they couldn't be more eager to offer support.

"The project has everything going for it and it's definitely filling a gap within our program delivery suite so we were more than happy to get on board and support them when we got the call," Ms Bailey said.

"We're hoping to create something sustainable that encourages participants to build their own confidence and then become leaders within this new program."

The group worked to ensure they had a broad number of organisations to support them to give the program the best chance to excel.

"[Migrant And Refugee Settlement Services] is providing support in terms of making the program as culturally safe and trauma-informed as possible and then Navitas English has offered to provide free English lessons for those with language barriers before they jump into the pool," Ms Gao said.

"We have also been getting incredible donations from the community through our GoFundMe page which is still up and accessible for people to give to this great cause."

To support the project, visit www.gofundme.com/f/refugee-migrant-swimming-project

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