We are a surf club, therapy-based watersports organisation with multiple primary areas of dedication: To introduce (or re-introduce) girls and women to the ocean and in particular the sport of surfing, but in an inclusive, non-judgemental, and emotionally safe way, in order to foster the key elements of Fun, Fitness and Friendship Participants are predominantly from under-served or disadvantaged communities, or from communities who have traditionally struggled to access these sports and spaces. To help girls and women deal with traumas and/or resettlement by engaging with the ocean through the sport of surfing, or even just, in the beginning, through time spent playing and exploring boundaries in the ocean. The first objective is achieved via a weekly girls club session, which now has upward of 40 participants weekly, from age 8 and up in the girls session, as well as an 18+ session, and also a women’s 30+ session which has served to allow women with busy family/work lives to re-engage with surfing to assist in the wellness journeys, after having, in many cases, to give it up as family life and careers developed, thus providing them with an empowering experience that is “theirs”. The second objective has been realised by establishing short 6 or 8-week courses with various partner organisations, examples of which having been groups of re-settled Syrian and other refugee women and their daughters, some of whom had never been in, or close to the ocean, and also groups of women and some of their children who are under the protection of North Devon Against Domestic Abuse (NDADA), in this case using the therapeutic and empowering powers of ocean play to help with their navigation of their difficult situation. We have also run sessions/courses for the trans, LGBTQ communities, and hosted similarly functioning organisations from other parts of the UK. These have all been very successfully received, and serve as pilot schemes for greater work in the coming years. As well as these objectives, we have now successfully trained girls who started as weekly participants, to the level of qualified surf coach and beach lifeguard, as they enter their late teens, enabling them to pursue paid job roles in these fields. As well as enormously empowering them. This is also serving to further add women and girls to this traditionally male-dominated space, helping to turn the numbers in a direction more inclusive, equal, and diverse.

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