The US SurfAid Schools Program has been working with ninth grade teachers in the School of Digital Media Design at San Diego’s Kearny High School to use the story of SurfAid as an educational example for action.  

The ninth grade students have enjoyed attending SurfAid’s monthly SURF-N-SERVE events where students are asked to be global citizens by cleaning up the beaches in their own communities once a month.  

In their classes, DMD students have helped create sample logos for the SurfAid Schools Program and developed a website highlighting SurfAid's work.  To culminate their work with the DMD ninth grade class, SurfAid has sponsored a logo contest on Facebook, as well as a Facebook web design contest where winners will have their work honored by Billabong.  ...read more

In this article, US SurfAid Schools Program manager, Dr Andrea Yoder-Clark, beautifully articulates the importance of business and education working closely together to achieve inspired high quality outcomes for the future.

Recently, I had the luxury of being inspired in an unlikely place.  As I sat in the movie theater, watching Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, the main character, Ted, lifted my spirit with his love inspired actions that changed his world.  I walked away from that movie thinking about times in my own life when I have acted out of love as a mother, a wife, a former teacher or now as a business owner, and how good those moments felt.  I realized that those moments of inspired action all shared one thing in common, a thought that was unique enough to make a difference, but similar enough to be understood.  And, I couldn’t help thinking that inspired action is not acted on nearly enough in business.

Last week in the San Diego Business Journal, Qualcom co-founder Irwin Jacobs and local bio tech CEO Phillip Lowe spoke from a place of inspired action, asking us to stretch our minds to consider the links between business and education. These business leaders asked future mayoral candidates to re-brand San Diego as an “entrepreneurial hub”, and at the same time reminded us all that high quality public schools attract high quality employees.  Now that is inspired action… asking business to invest in future success by supporting struggling public schools today.  This idea is unique, yet realistic. And, that got me excited. ...read more

Seventy young people from around New Zealand and Asia gathered in Tauranga, New Zealand, to brainstorm ways to strengthen relations between New Zealand and Asia. 

The Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Young Leaders Network Reunion was organized to mark five years since the network’s beginning and was the start of a four-day conference for participants. The young leaders reflected on what the network had achieved and discussed ways it can contribute further to increasing New Zealanders’ understanding of Asia. 

Endah Setyaningsih, SurfAid’s Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in Nias, was invited to speak to conference delegates about her experience of growing up in Indonesia and her work with communities in Nias. 

Endah also joined three young leaders when they visited Papamoa College in Tauranga to talk to a group of Year 9 and 10 students. The students were really keen to hear from people living and working in Asia and especially Endah’s experience growing up in Jakarta and her work for SurfAid. ...read more

Ripeando Magazine has formed a strategic alliance with the SurfAid Schools Program, with the goal of supporting the growing surf movement and inspiring the message of global citizenship in Latin America.  Billabong has supported the SurfAid Schools Program to spread its message of surfers as global citizens in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. This program uses the example of SurfAid’s founder, Dr Dave Jenkins, to demonstrate what it means to be an active global citizen. This alliance will investigate ways of bringing this example to surfing communities in Latin America. 

Recently, Latino riders have noticeably increased their presence in the ISA World Games both in their performance and influence. Currently, half of the countries rated in the top 10 are from South America, although there is still plenty of work to do.  

Several countries around the world have supported surf teams and clubs in schools, such as Australia, France, the United States and Brazil. The SurfAid Schools Program is different.  The SurfAid Schools Program provides free online curriculum to teachers that links surfing and the message of global citizenship to academic content standards.  SurfAid believes that kids will want to learn science, math, social studies and English when you link the concepts to something that kids enjoy - surfing! 

Ripeando Magazine is a great partner for spreading SurfAid’s message to the Hispanic community.  Ripeando will act as the liaison, providing a clear channel for information and communication, but will also act as a strategic partner to help link the identity of global citizenship to the surfing community.  We believe this partnership will help usher in a new view of surfing across the continent. ...read more

More than 200 people participated in the second annual Paddle for Humanity for SurfAid at Tairua, on New Zealand’s North Island, on Saturday 19 November.

Tairua School students organized the event and raised $5,500 with the support of their principal Brendan Finn, teachers and the local community.  SurfAid founder Dr Dave Jenkins started the paddle and joined in and he thanked the schoolchildren and community for their support of children in need in the Mentawai Islands. 

“The money raised will supply two communities with insecticide-treated mosquito nets and help reduce needless suffering and death from malaria,” Dr Dave said. 

Reducing malaria infection rates in the Mentawai was SurfAid’s first campaign 10 years ago and remains one of its most effective. ...read more

SurfAid's October SURF-N-SERVE events kicked off with a beach cleanup at Malibu's Surfrider Beach for SURF-N-SERVE LA on Saturday, October 7th.  Malibu High School's SurfAid Club represented with over 20 participants contributing to a cleaner beach at the Surfrider organized clean-up day.  All events honored Aussie Pro Surfer Dave Rastovich's TransparentSea Voyage and to get the word out around his new documentary, Minds in the Water.  The TransparentSea Voyage hopes to raise awareness around the killing of dolphins and whales around the world with the release of their documentary. The TransparentSea Voyage began their tour down California's coast on small single man sailing vessels in San Francisco, coming ashore at various points for a beach clean-up and documentary screening.  The SurfAid Schools program was proud to be able to partner with the TransparentSea voyage for the Southern California leg of their trip.

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On Saturday 19 November the students of Tairua School are holding their second Paddle for Humanity event that was inspired by the actions of Dr Dave Jenkins. The inaugural event in 2010 saw the students rally over 200 members of their community to paddle surfboards, inflatable boats, surf skis and lilos across Tairua Harbour to raise awareness and money for SurfAid. This year Dr Dave Jenkins will officially start the paddle.



The school and its students organise the event and their participation demonstrates authentic teaching and learning at its best. The "Tairua School Citizen" aims to be a global citizen of the future and this year's Tairua Paddle for Humanity will embody this spirit. ...read more

The TransparentSea voyage is coming to a close but they are still heading south and seeing some of the best and worst of the ocean along the way. You can follow the action at transparentseavoyage.com

The SurfAid Schools Program, supported by Billabong, is teaming up with the voyage on October 23rd when our SURF-N-SERVE program participants will assist with the beach clean up activity.

SurfAid Ambassador Angus Stone joined the voyage in its early stages and contributed to the song “ These 20 miles”. The voyagers have added a song a day to the music and are raising funds from the music, a Minds in The Water movie screening, followed by live in concert Band of Frequencies, art show & auction all in support of Surfer’s for Cetaceans (S4C) and other ocean minded charities. ...read more

The kickoff to our first SurfAid SURF-N-SERVE event in Southern California on Sunday 18 September was a great success. We were excited to see a much larger turnout than we expected where 44 students, teachers, parents and community members worked with the Eli Howard Surf Camp and the SurfAid Schools Program to be a part of California's Coastal Clean-Up and World Water Day events.

Of those 44 people, there were 30 youth in attendance, 15 of whom received free surf lessons donated by Eli Howard Surf Camp. I had a great time sharing the stoke, working to be a better global citizen myself and sharing the inspiration of Dr Dave and the SurfAid story.  Despite our tight time line, in 20 minutes we cleaned up over 84 lbs. of trash!  Way to go! That is truly global citizenship in action.

A special thanks goes out to Eli Howard Surf Camp at the San Elijo State Park Campground for allowing us to utilize their epic location, all of their equipment, and the time of their amazing instructors.  Emily, a special thanks to you for squeezing us into your packed schedule at such short notice.  We SO appreciate it.  ...read more

The SurfAid Schools Program, supported by Billabong, continues to attract teachers from around the planet who are looking for quality teaching resources. The Global Citizenship focus and humanitarian activities of SurfAid are providing stimulating lessons for teachers and students who access our materials for free at surfaidschools.org.  

We now have over 1600 teachers registered from around the globe. Australia leads the way but our burst of activity in California earlier this year has seen a 40% increase in sign ups since December 2010.  ...read more