Tag: giving back

SWA Partners with Non-Profit in Peru to Empower Local Women Through Surf

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Surf With Amigas has a goal of partnering with local non-profits that work to improve the lives of community members in the places we host retreats. Finding a trust-worthy non-profit, working on a project that we want to support, is easier in some places than others.

Luckily for us, our trip leader for the Peruvian retreats, Natalie Small, has been spending quite a bit of time in the country every year for nearly a decade, and has forged many strong relationships with the local women. First traveling to Peru as a tourist with a goal of checking out Machu Picchu in 2013, she fell in love with a seaside town that just happened to be the birthplace of surfing in the region. Natalie is the founder of Groundswell Community Project, a 501-c3 surf therapy organization and created a local chapter in Huanchaco with the goal of healing, empowering, and uniting local women and girls in the waves by making surfing accessible to them.

Surf With Amigas has been able to support the program by buying a quiver of boards for use during our retreats that will be donated to the collective. Two different local shapers made boards to allow the Hermanas to open the very first women-owned, women-run surf school and surf shop in Peru. How rad is that?!

The local women can then use these boards to rent to tourists and use in their community programs, including a bi-weekly surf therapy drop-in for moms and teens. The Hermanas are currently working on getting ISA certified so that they can be surf coaches in Huanchaco.

These boards have given huge opportunity for the local women to be able to be empowered to start their own business in the sea.

Join us on a 2023 Retreat in Peru to support this amazing project and experience the longest left in the world!

Surf With Amigas Supported Projects Need Some Extra Help

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Giving Back

Surf With Amigas believes in giving back to the communities where we live, love, and surf with our guests.

We have been funding baby sea turtle conservation programs in Nicaragua and Costa Rica for many years. Our funds contribute to turning potential poachers into conservationists, assuring that sea turtle nests are not raided by people wanting to eat or sell the eggs, but that eggs are transferred to a safe hatchery, assuring the best chance of success for the little turtles.

sea turtle conservation, surf with amigas

Starting last year, Surf With Amigas has supported a therapeutic arts program for Costa Rican children and adults. In a community where there are not any extracurricular activities available, having an opportunity to spend some time in a safe space, exploring art with an encouraging teacher has contributed to an increase in self-esteem and feeling of well-being. This program is especially important now that schools are shut down.
family retreat, art class, surf with amigas
Our partners are asking for our continued support of these worthy programs, but unfortunately since we are not able to host any retreats right now we don’t have the extra funds to do it. We are reaching out to ask if any of our awesome Amigas have a little extra to help in this time. Luckily, a little goes a long way down here.

We know and love these organizations and know that 100% of the money generated will go directly to these projects. Thank you so much for your continued support!

Go Fund Me Link HERE

SWA Teaches Our Local Staff How To Surf

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If you’ve been on one of our retreats in Southern Costa Rica, you’ll recognize these awesome ladies as the ones who make your delicious meals, greet you with a smile at cocktail hour, and keep your room tidy. After watching all our awesome guests with big smiles on their faces after a great surf session, these ladies wanted to try it for themselves. We took them down to the beach and did a surf lesson as if they were guests, complete with a pre-session stretch and post-session video analysis. They loved it! It felt so good to share the stoke of surfing with our entire team.

Release Baby Sea Turtles in Nicaragua in November and December

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sea turtle conservation, surf with amigas

sea turtle conservation, surf with amigas
Surf with Amigas has been sponsoring the Waves of Hope sea turtle conservation program since 2012. We just committed to another year doing our part to give back by supporting the program that buys baby sea turtle eggs from poachers turned conservationists to ensure there will be turtles in the lineup for years to come!

See below for the video we made way back in 2012 in our first year of the project. All the info is the same! If you’d like to participate in the release of baby turtles, join us in Nicaragua Nov 2-9, Nov 9-16, Nov 23-30, or Dec 7-14!

Supporting Local Children Through Art

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giving back with local kids in Costa Rica

At Surf With Amigas, we are always looking for constructive ways to engage with the communities where we host retreats. Whether it’s funding sea turtle conservation, donating school books to indigenous children, giving scholarships for higher education, or encouraging women to participate in sports by sponsoring a local ladies kickball team, we feel good about giving back wherever we are.

In this case, we have become friends with an amazingly inspiring woman named Hadas, who owns a vegetarian cafe and surf view cabanas as her day job, and offers art classes to kids and adults to feed her passion for art. She runs an open art studio called De Colores in Pavones, Costa Rica. It is dedicated to promoting well being and deep healing through the creative process of art making. That’s a goal we can get behind! 

We are so happy to donate funds to support free art classes for local children to explore and express themselves through color, textures, and the allowance to get messy!

Here are a few photos from a recent class.

By supporting us, you are supporting her, and thereby supporting them. Thank you!