Surfing academy continues lessons on land
The Local Surf Lounge Academy in Muizenberg is where youth from Vrygrond have an opportunity to learn to surf and occupy some of their time learning life skills while having fun with their peers. Lele Zozi, 20, from Capricorn, learnt to surf from the age of seven through various organisations. Now he mentors youth to surf at the academy. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)
A LOCAL surfing academy has been running their programmes on dry land as the beach ban prevents them from taking children into the ocean during lockdown.
The Local Surf Lounge Academy is involved with training surfers from Vrygrond.
Founder Shuan Solomons, 31, from Vrygrond was retrenched from his job at an NGO and decided to open up the academy to continue to give children an opportunity to learn how to surf in July last year.
“I worked with children for 10 years so I started a surfing project for them as I ran the project for my previous job for five years. People asked me about what will happen to the children. Then I decided that I will start my own initiative,” he said.
With support from family and friends, he is able to provide breakfast and lunch for 45 youth between the ages of 6 and 22 years.
They run various programmes and offer a safe space for surfers that can give them motivation.
The academy currently operates from Monday to Wednesday due to the lockdown regulations and not being able to surf.
“Due to lack of funding we had to cut down on the days. From 9am till 3pm we do mentoring programmes, hiking, cooking and beginner-on-land surfing lessons,” he said.
A basic day would be where the children arrive, sanitise and then split up into two groups for turf clean ups and surf lessons.
“Most of the meals are donations we get from friends and family. People donate canned food and even pots of food.
“A basic surfing lesson is to start on the sand, so we call it a practical where you learn the basic pop-up. At the moment we practise at the park in Muizenberg next to the Shark Spotters. We also do lessons here at the academy close to the beach,” added Solomons.
He is also involved with Vrygrond Youth Sports Development for their surfing programme.
Mentor and surfing learner Lele Zozi, started surfing at the age of seven and saw that he could go far in life by riding the ocean waves.
The 20-year-old participated in surfing competitions and started travelling to places like Port Elizabeth to surf.
“I surfed and then realised that I should give the youth lessons, who never had an opportunity that I had, to get better,” he said.
Having trained in various surfing programmes, he realised that he did not want to see children fall to gangsterism and wanted to steer them on to the correct path.
“Sometimes they would come to my house, to borrow a skateboard to keep them occupied,” he added.
Zozi said that they need the ocean where there are no gun fights and where children can be themselves.
Another mentor, Shane Lentoor, 39, is responsible for child protection and mentoring through his programmes Silent Knowledge and Self Help.
“The focus of it is to bring youth closer to a realisation that they have rights and values of how they can live within society. We do life skills in the medium of nature which includes mountaineering and surfing,” said Lentoor.
He has been protesting the lockdown regulations with the learners at Muizenberg beach, from Monday to Wednesday.
“Children want to know why they can’t go into the water. We had to explain to them that there are new policies and guidelines put in place. We walked with our wetsuits and just took a walk on the peer to remind ourselves that we are surfers,” he said.
He explained that they made banners which said that they want to surf.
“They see fisherman in the water, so the children are asking questions. We wanted to teach them that they are brave,” said Lentoor.