SurfAid International

While the primary focus of this trip is scoring unbelievable waves with very few people in the lineup, this trip also gives me a chance to connect with a very special organization, SurfAid International. If you've seen me in the last year and a half wearing the blue wrist band, that's SurfAid.

I have been supporting SurfAid for the last year and a half, financially, through a collection on every file I fund through my company Arcadia Capital. It's a way that I've found that I can support a wonderful and dedicated group of individuals who are doing something far greater than what I do and help people live and thrive in a region of the world that is plagued by poverty, hunger and --most notably-- sub-standard health conditions. I wish that I could help in other ways but I've realized that maybe just supporting SurfAid financially is how I fit into the puzzle and I'm glad to do it.

SurfAid's mission, is simple:
To improve the health of people living in isolated regions connected to us through surfing.

Here's a quick bio taken from SurfAid's website:

Six years ago, physician and surfer Dr. Dave Jenkins went on a surf charter to the Mentawai Islands with one goal in mind: to find perfect waves.

The surf proved to be everything he had hoped for. What he also found, though, were the Mentawai people---mostly women and children-–-suffering and dying from the ravages of malaria and other preventable diseases. Troubled by the inequity of lifestyles and moved by compassion, Dr. Jenkins went on to establish SurfAid International, a non-profit organization dedicated to the alleviation of human suffering through community-based health programs.

Soon after, Dave was contacted by investment banker, Andrew Griffiths, a fellow Kiwi in London preparing for a surf holiday in the Mentawai Islands. Andrew had heard about Dave’s Mentawai initiative through a friend and set up a meeting, where the two immediately clicked. A plan was quickly hatched a to raise a couple of thousand dollars through friends and contacts - enough to buy mosquito nets and permethrin (the insecticide for treating the nets) - and pilot a small malaria net distribution program to the villages adjacent to the breaks Andrew would visit.

Andrew's first SurfAid mission was a success. Hooked, Andrew swapped his life in London for a tiny project in a small Mentawai village. Working as volunteers out of Padang, West Sumatra, Dave and Andrew began laying the building blocks of the SurfAid International Mentawai Health Program.

In the years that have elapsed since the founding of SurfAid, others have joined in the effort, including individuals, international corporations, government agencies, and global health organizations. Coupled with the support of volunteers, the international surfing community, and most importantly the Mentawai people themselves, SurfAid has come to exemplify the healing power of cross-cultural partnerships.

SurfAid has expanded to include 53 villages and over 37,000 beneficiaries in our programme, which is a community development health initiative focusing on malaria control and childhood health. SurfAid is also laying the foundations for the communities to run their own health programs and build on the prevention of other diseases.

-------------------------------

I'm very excited to go to this region of the world where SurfAid has established a successful and effective method of treating and caring for people that did not ask to be put in the situation they are in...they were born into it. They sell a shirt on their website that reads "Malaria Sucks" and it's more true than you and I know. There is a statistic claiming that each Mentawai family has a 50% chance of losing a child to malaria and a 100% chance of being affected by malaria in one way or another. That's some heavy s#*t.

If you are not familiar with SurfAid, or even if you know who they are, please visit their website and learn more about this great team and the plight of the Mentawai people and how you might be able to help, whether it's making a donation, leaving them a helpful comment of support or subscribing to their newsletter to keep up with their progress.

www.surfaidinternational.org


Tomorrow, let's learn more about where in Indonesia I'm going and just how far away from home I'll be, physically...cuz there's no way to humanly calculate how far away from home I'll be mentally and spiritually :)