Surfing gets South Africa’s
homeless kids off Durban’s streets 0
A 14-year-old boy named Wonder clambers out of the ocean and onto Durban’s South Beach, exhausted after hours of surfing, and collapses on the sand.
At the end of the day, he’ll return his surfboard to a nearby community centre and then curl up on a downtown sidewalk to sleep.
Wonder is among a dozen young black boys taking to the waves every day through a community group called Umthombo, which is coaching street kids in surfing and other sports to keep them off the street while providing counselling to find more lasting solutions to their problems.
“When I’m surfing, I don’t sniff glue. I want to leave it behind,” said Wonder.
His parents have both died, and he ran away from his uncle’s home, where Wonder says he was beaten and often denied meals.
He says he’d rather live on the streets than return to his uncle. In his tattered wetsuit, he’s found a new identity. After a year of practise, he won second place in a local competition, scooping a trophy, a T-shirt and “a big bag of chips”.
Emma Sibilo, one of the social workers at Umthombo, said Wonder’s story is typical of the estimated 400 street kids in Durban. Most have turned to the streets after their parents died, or to escape abuse at home.
But life on the streets exposes them to drugs and often forces them into gangs that wage violent turf wars in the city, she said.
“Surfing takes them away from drugs. They go there, they become active, they get fit, meaning they engage in less anti-social behaviour,” Sibilo said.
One of the smallest surfers is nine-year-old Khetho, who has spent most of his life on the streets. He sleeps with his three brothers on the sidewalk, has bounced in and out of temporary homes, but was mainly spending his time begging for money and sniffing glue.
Since he started surfing two years ago, he eats two meals a day at Umthombo and spends most of his days in the water.
.jpg)
