A hitherto reserved sport – surfing – appears to be helping some of Durban’s street children overcome their troubled past.
Surfing was almost exclusively a white only sport under apartheid South Africa but with the end of the regime, came the end of its exclusivity.
Thanks to training from Umthombo Street Children, a community-based project working with underprivileged and homeless youth, several former street children are taking up surfing.
One of them Thabane Ndima, who was found by Umthombo, says he “tried soccer and cricket but when I did surfing I felt like something was being lifted from my heart and I found peace and harmony”.
“Every time I do surfing I get to forget about everything in my past that is painful and I get to focus on what I’m doing” he added.
But surfing does not only serve as an avenue for Thabane to escape his past, he says “surfing has made my life better”, a feeling he says is best appreciated by “those who understand what surfing is all about”.
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