South African charity Waves for Change say they are "beyond stoked" to have received the Laureus Sport for Good Award at the glitzy annual ceremony in Monaco on Tuesday night.
Getting townships kids off the streets and onto surfboards earned the non-profit organisation the coveted award at the 2017 Laureus World Sports Awards on Tuesday night.
Former South African Olympic swimmer and Princess of Monaco Charlene Wittstock presented the award to Waves for Change founder Tim Conibear.
The Laureus Sport for Good Award is presented to an organisation or individual who has used the power of sport to overcome violence, discrimination or disadvantage.
Waves of Change harnesses the power of surfing as a form of therapy to vulnerable children in informal settlements such as Masiphumelele and Khayelitsha.
“The evidence shows surfing is a powerful tool to help children deal with trauma, we’ve seen other organisations do it around the world and to be recognised on this platform is important for our work and for the concept of surf therapy,” Conibear said.
“It started as a voluntary programme in Masiphumelele working with one coach and 20 kids, and now it is all around South Africa.
“Laureus’ support has been huge, they were the first guys to fund us, we pitched this idea of surfing therapy which five years ago never existed,” Conibear said.
“We had no evidence, we had this fairly harebrained idea and they believed in it and they said it was all for good.”
Conibear, an Englishman, saw the need for emotional and mental care for young people living in violent and unstable communities.
Spending time in South Africa after graduating from university, Conibear found young people from the local township in need of social support and used surfing as the vehicle to bring about a change in their lives.
“We found that kids in the Cape Town townships have eight traumatic events every single year whereas for me, coming from the United Kingdom, I have maybe five in a lifetime,” Conibear said.
“The goal has always been to see the programme come under the ownership of the communities where we work.
“A lot of the people can’t swim, they can’t surf so we do a lot training to make sure the communities can own it themselves.”
Since its inception in 2011 Waves for Change has grown from 10 children in Masiphumelele to reaching 1000 while it has helped over 50 coaches achieve qualifications and skills in surf coaching, lifesaving child protection, trauma counselling and and computer training.
“As a small South African organisation on the global stage this is awesome to fly the colours and it proves there are some amazing people living in the country full of entrepreneurial spirit,” Conibear said.
“The idea is if you connect someone with a challenging activity that takes a lot of skill to master in theory a lot of the cognitive processes get stimulated and that is what we find to be surfing.”
The organisation also added on social media: Thank you Laureus for this incredible recognition of our work. The#sportforgood award is for people or organisations who use the power of sport to overcome violence, discrimination or disadvantage, and we're beyond stoked to have received it! #surftherapy#wavesforchange.
Many of the children in the Waves for Change programme live metres from the ocean but have not set a foot in the water.
The programme starts by teaching them how to swim before participating in group and peer-to-peer therapy.