Isiqalo Rises

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Those of you who attended last year’s ‘Wavescapes Development Film night’, or witnessed the record-breaking auction at the Wavescape Art Auction, may well remember the involvement of a group of kids from Masiphumelele: A bunch of groms stoked on surfing who’d been cutting their teeth through a local community organization.

Following extensive piloting and research throughout 2010, and with no little help from Wavescape and the good guys at Lifestyles Surf Shop, that community organization has recently launched it’s new website to support the work it has been doing in and around the waves and developing communities of the Cape since 2009.

The organisation in question is called ‘Isiqalo’. Based in the township of Masiphumelele, The Isiqalo Foundation is working to encourage youth and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to make informed and educated decisions about their own futures, and to provide youth with the essential skills and knowledge to take their first steps as active and enfranchised members of a larger society.

From their own ‘Isiqalo centre’, a reconditioned shack and now fully functioning classroom in the heart of Masi, the foundation runs a free Grade R education programme for families who are unable to send their children to crèche and also arranges sports leagues after school, providing children and young adults with competitive sport, mentoring and a good meal in a bid to keep them off the streets and on the sports field.

The Isiqalo Foundation also runs a pioneering surfing and HIV prevention course at Muizenberg and can be found in the water four times a week. Named ‘First Step Surf’, the programme delivers the ‘Waves for Change’ curriculum, developed by Isiqalo over the course of 2010 with experts in the HIV prevention and education fields, with the express aim of using surfing to address the proliferation of the HIV virus amongst youths aged 15-22.

‘Surfing’s potential for transformation on the part of the individual is peerless’, says programme leader and foundation director Tim Conibear.

‘As surfers and through surfing, we hope we can be part of a first step towards an HIV Free generation’ he adds.

Wavescape will be supporting Isiqalo in 2011 and will keep its members dialed in through ‘Isiqalo News’, updating all the latest goings on with photos and anecdotes from the programmes.

Isiqalo welcomes local volunteers to their programmes and you will find up to date information on wavescape and on the Isiqalo website at: http://www.isiqalo.org