70 children across three communities!
With your support Surfpop is now supporting 70 children across three communities through its holistic program model! The new children, referred by foster care and social workers working in the three previously disadvantaged communities of Masiphumelele, Ocean View and Khayelitsha, joined between May and October. We are beyond stoked (happy) with our growing Surfpop family, creating a much needed safe, stable and happy environment for more children after school.
Growing our Masiphumelele program
Between May and August, we expanded our Masiphumelele program to 52 children, inviting 20 new children from Masiphumelele township and the neighbouring poor community of Ocean View to join. The first months were very exciting!
The new children braved the cold winter ocean and caught their first waves, while starting their swimmming lessons at a local swim school too. All children, new and old, joined the Swim like a Shark workshop by AfriOceans, where they experienced life underwater. They learned from professional surfers Joshe Faulkner and Matt Bromley and joined yoga lessons, gardening classes, music workshops, a workshop on sustainable entrepreneurship by the local brand BALLO and beach clean-ups. Our 15+ learners had the amazing opportunity to participate in the Ambassadors for the Ocean program facilitated by Ocean Pledge, the Toastmasters World Champion Verity Price and Dawn Patrol Wines, building their confidence in speaking up for the ocean. And of course, all Surfpop children worked hard on their school work, Maths and English in our Surfpop classrooms.
Opening a new program in Khayelitsha
In October we opened our new campus in Khayelitsha township, where we trained a new local team and invited 18 new children to join the Surfpop family. The first month in the ocean and in our classrooms with our new team and the new children from Khayelitsha were incredible. The children caught their first waves, learned to float in a tidal pool, visited the Save our Seas Foundation, joined their first classroom sessions and did their first beach clean-up. We cannot wait to witness the children grow and develop, as they benefit from our holistic program model.
We are proud that our after-school education activity improves the children’s school performance!
The last two years have been extremely challenging for school children attending public schools in townships, which due to COVID-19 could not continue education for all learners and were unable to offer a suitable online learning experience. Under these unique circumstances the benefit of the Surfpop program in providing a safe and well-resourced learning environment has been evident.
Since 2019, the Surfpop learners have achieved a 100 percent pass rate and each year outperformed the national average for Maths and English. Between 2020 and 2021, Surfpop learners improved their Maths performance with 5 percent and their English performance with 7 percent, while at the national level the average performance deteriorated with 0.2 percent and 1.5 percent respectively during this period.
We would like to introduce you to one of our first Surfpop graduates, who is nowadays a proud member of the Surfpop staff: Babongile!
Babongile joined Surfpop in 2015 as a 12-year old boy from Masiphumelele township. Over the last seven years, he has dedicated himself to Surfpop and never missed a Surfpop day. At Surfpop he focused on his school work and on surfing. He has shown an incredible commitment and he is a true role model for the other children.
With the help of Surfpop, he got a bursary to complete his final years of high school at False Bay College with a specialization in IT, which he finished last year. In January he joined the Surfpop team as a surf coach! He has proven to be a fantastic coach, teaching the children the art of surfing with a lot of passion and enthusiasm and mentoring the children in other aspects of their life too. With his IT knowledge he also gives computer literacy classes to the Surfpop learners.
In Muizenberg, Babongile is a well known local surfer. It is his dream to continue to coach, to compete nationally or internationally, and to study further next year.
Join the Surfpop Tribe as donor or volunteer to give 16 more children the opportunity to join Surfpop! In the last weeks we have already welcomed 6 new children into the Surfpop family, but we would like to give an additional 16 girls and boys from the poor communities of Masiphumelele and Ocean View that opportunity. They have been on our waiting list for a long time, so we cannot wait to welcome them and grow our family to 52 children, of whom half are girls!
Vision
All 52 children, referred by foster care, social workers and schools, will join Surfpop five days a week after school. Twice a week we take the children surfing, introducing them to the beauty and the healing power of the ocean. The other days we improve the children’s school performance and promote their dreams and skills for the future through after-school education, vocational training and life coaching. Each day the children receive a nutritious meal. Our vision is long-term. Through our program we help each child access better future opportunities, such as a bursary to attend a good-quality school or college or an internship or job at Surfpop or a company within our network. Our first graduates obtained such opportunities and are true role models for the other Surfpop children, showing them that anything is possible!
Ready for growth
Over the last years, we have worked hard to get to this point and we feel 100% ready to grow. We have learned from our impact assessments that show the positive impact of our program on the well-being, resilience and school performance of the children, to name some of the key outcomes. In the words of our beneficiaries and their caregivers: “Surfpop teaches us to be courageous in the ocean and in our dreams for the future” and “now my child knows that her dreams can come true so she keeps on dreaming.” In addition to that we have trained a strong qualified local team, who are excited and ready to welcome the new children into the program.
Join us as tribe member
Join the Surfpop Tribe and help us give these 16 children the support that they need. To welcome one child into the Surfpop family, we only need nine Tribe members who donate €10 per month. Join our growing family: become a Surfpop Tribe member! Can you get 8 of your tribe members to join you in supporting one Surfpop child? Head over to our donate page to join the tribe and maybe even start a fundraiser yourself!
Or as a volunteer!
More children also means that we need more helping hands in the surf and in the class to assist our local team. Would you be keen to support Surfpop a volunteer? If you book for August, when the waves are at their best, you will get a 15% discount! Head over to the volunteer page or contact us directly!
In February, a new group of 9 volunteers from Europe joined us in our beloved surf town, Muizenberg. It was an eventful month for them with Surfpop!
A fair amount of time was spent in the ocean, where our surf coaches Dan and Peter introduced the volunteers to surfing and where the volunteers shared their newfound love for surfing with the Surfpop children. It was amazing to see how both the volunteers and the Surfpop children got more confident in the surf and how surfing connected them in such a beautiful way.
On land, our teacher Shaleen guided the volunteers in how to best mentor the Surfpop children in the classroom. Each volunteer was paired with one or two Surfpop children and throughout the month they assisted them with their homework, Maths and English. As tutors, our volunteers played an important role in improving the children’s school outcomes and encouraging them to become active, critical and creative thinkers: two important objectives of the Surfpop education sessions.
Next to volunteering, the volunteers discovered everything that the Cape Town peninsula has to offer: they explored Cape Point nature reserve, they hiked Table Mountain, they discovered the city center of Cape Town by visiting the Apartheid museum, Signal Hill, Camps Bay and Bakoven beach, they drove around the peninsula via the famous Chapman’s Peak drive and one of the Surfpop graduates showed the volunteers his township community, Masiphumelele.
All in all, it was an exciting and eventful month for both the Surfpop children and volunteers!
We’ve got an exciting new partner! Meet BALLO, a local Capetonian brand that makes unique sunglasses and goods handmade from sustainable materials, always putting the planet before profit.
Not only do they donate 1% of their profit to the planet, BALLO also donates 10% of the revenue from the sale of their new indestructible eyewear for kids to Surfpop! Two cork ropey frames for kids, built for life outdoors with no temples (arms) to snap off, just ropes that can be fastened around the head with lock toggles. Kids can’t lose them and can’t break them. And they float…
And we have got good news for you! As BALLO loves what we do, they are giving our Surfpop followers an additional discount code of 10% on all their products applied at checkout: SurfpopBallo.
Head over to the BALLO website to check it out!
