About Us
Founded in 2009 and formally registered in 2011, Waves for Change is a South African non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the mental wellness of adolescents facing significant adversity in high-stress environments. Operating in the Western and Eastern Cape, with a support hub office in Cape Town, we fuse the rush and therapeutic benefits of surfing with Take 5 evidence-based activities to create a fun, culturally relevant and youth-led service for adolescents.
Surf Therapy
Our Surf Therapy programme teaches participants how to build positive social networks and develop self-regulation skills to support healthy emotional and behavioural responses to stress.
Since our inception, we have trained 215 coaches who have delivered Surf Therapy to over 10,000 adolescents. Coaches and adolescents have played a huge role in shaping our Surf Therapy programme and we strive to continue to listen and learn from their feedback experiences as we continuously improve our work.
With a track record of impact, robust governance practices and solid financial management structures and excellent fiscal management protocols, we have received clean professional audits year-on-year. We provide safe spaces and access to caring adults for adolescents and therefore invest in implementing international standards in child protection and safeguarding through our recruitment, training and supervision protocols.
Our Goal
Best practice training and supervision to support increased access to safe, third spaces where adolescents growing up in high-stress environments can access fun, physical activity-based mental health and wellbeing services.
- Evidence-driven Surf Therapy across five flagship sites in South Africa
- Robust external research to generate learning to share with the sector
- Best practice training and mentoring to support increased access to physical activity based, mental health and wellbeing promotion services across low and middle income countries
We Value
The adolescents and young people we work with are at the core of what we do. With them, we’ve created a set of values to drive our strategy and day-to-day interactions.
Bananas
The W4C culture promotes protecting each other from harm, respecting each other equally, and open communication – always, anytime, anywhere!
Well-being
We want to increase understanding of mental health and the core pillars of programmes that improve emotional, mental, and physical well-being of people in under-resourced communities.
People First
Our programme focuses on the developmental and health needs of children and young people, whose well-being is our first priority.
Diversity
Every person in the W4C family experiences acceptance and belonging. No matter what they look like, where they come from, what they believe in, or what they can do.
Participate and Collaborate
Children, coaches, and community participate in developing the Waves for Change model of learning, and we participate in the wider networks and communities of practice to support increasing access to high-quality youth well-being programmes.
Be Transparent
We share how we source and spend money and how we make collective decisions by ensuring anyone can ask questions, raise concerns, and give feedback.
Safety
By maintaining physical and psychological safety, children feel understood and accepted, supported when they try news things, and can have fun being a child!
How it all started: Isiqalo
Waves for Change grew from voluntary weekend surfing sessions run at Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town, by founders Apish Tshetsha and Tim Conibear.
The findings of early research conducted at Waves for Change highlighted the importance of effective recruitment, training, and supervision of caring coaches to whom adolescents could relate. Waves for Change worked with adolescents, universities, and mental health practitioners to develop a coach training and supervision protocol, as well as a simple teaching routine and fun activities that could be integrated with surfing and support adolescents in coping with stress.
Founded as the Isiqalo Foundation Trust, Waves for Change now delivers free, 10-month Surf Therapy courses to 2,800 adolescents growing up in high-stress environments across 5 beach hubs in South Africa. Waves for Change also shares the active ingredients of our award-winning Surf Therapy programme with the world for use in other settings and physical activities through the Take 5 programme.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you take volunteers at Waves for Change?
Unfortunately, we do not currently take on volunteers to deliver our surf therapy programme or interact with our participants. Our model focuses on supporting and enabling local youth to deliver a sustainable surf therapy service to children from their community. The participants we serve also need consistent and stable interactions with caring mentors whom they can relate to and form healthy connections with. Volunteers from outside of the communities we work for, unfortunately, do not fit into this model, and we are unable to provide a volunteer experience that is meaningful and impactful for both our participants and volunteers.
I would like to apply to be a surf coach, but I do not know how to surf. Can I still apply?
Yes, you can apply.
If you are a young person from the communities that W4C works in (Cape Town: Muizenberg, Monwabisi, Hout Bay; Eastern Cape: Gqeberha and East London) and you would be interested in becoming a W4C surf coach, you do not need to know how to surf prior to applying.
How can I arrange a visit to any Waves for Change site?
Before visiting any of our five sites, please ensure that you first contact our programme manager to make an appointment. You can enquire about visiting Waves for Change via our info account on info@waves-for-change.org.Â
I am a journalist/photographer interested in visiting Waves for Change.
Please send over an enquiry to media@waves-for-change.org, and we will get back to you. We have strict child protection processes that we adhere to when participating in photography, videography and journalism, but where there is a fit in terms of content and storytelling, our team are able to coordinate this work and provide the appropriate supervision.Â
Get a Child to the Beach
Just a ripple can make waves and change lives through surfing and child-friendly mental health.
