The Gowings Pacific Trader team sat down with Marguerite Hofmeyer the Managing Director of Sentinel Ocean Alliance to understand more about what they do.
What are the origins of the Sentinel Ocean Alliance, its background and what inspired its creation?
Sentinel Ocean Alliance was established in 2018 by Frank Solomon, a professional big wave surfer from Hout Bay. Having grown up in the area and discovered his passion for surfing there, he wanted to create similar opportunities for local children. His vision centred on breaking down barriers to ocean access and ensuring kids from these local communities could experience the same opportunities he had growing up.
The initiative began with the Hout Bay Surf Lifesaving Club, a development-focused program designed to create ocean-based job opportunities. Hout Bay faces significant challenges with poaching, and the program aimed to provide alternative career paths, giving individuals other options beyond resorting to illegal activities.
Can you tell us about your partnership with Parley for the Oceans and the impact of the Parley Ocean School program?
In 2020, Sentinel Ocean Alliance partnered with Parley for the Oceans, a US-based non-profit, to establish the Parley Ocean School. With their support, an immersive, in-depth education program was developed, running in eight-week cycles for students from local communities. The program teaches students about the ocean, its significance, and humanity’s connection to it, fostering a deep appreciation for marine environments.
Once students develop an interest in the ocean, the focus shifts to the challenges it faces, including climate change, global warming, ocean acidification and overfishing, with a particular emphasis on marine plastic pollution - an issue they can actively help address. The program also explores solutions, highlighting the Parley AIR strategy: Avoiding single-use plastics, Intercepting plastic waste before it reaches the ocean, and Redesigning how materials are used to promote sustainability.
In addition to the core curriculum, the program hosts guest speakers every Friday from various ocean-related fields. Experts such as marine biologists, sailors, underwater photographers, big wave surfers, and turtle rehabilitation specialists share their knowledge and experiences. These sessions expose students to diverse career opportunities and inspire them to engage with ocean conservation in meaningful ways.
Concurrently we run the Turn the Tide program. The kids are with us for a total of 16 weeks – 8 weeks at the Parley Ocean School and 8 weeks in the Turn the Tide program.
It is an immersive program because you can’t just teach kids about the ocean, you must get them in the water to make the real difference and behavioural change that we are looking for. So, with our Turn the Tide program, it involves Ocean Immersion, Ocean Safety and Ocean Therapy. We are using the ocean as a mental health tool for these kids. The program combines a lot of mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises and also an ocean education component that explores how waves are formed, how tides are formed, wind, currents and ocean safety and then we teach them practical swimming skills as well with the coaches very specifically trained In positive behaviour reinforcement so really giving them a space where they can have fun and really feel like they are being built up and supported.
We have a longer-term Ocean Sentinel Program – it’s a 3-year program. We select 12 kids each year who have been through our programs to stay with us for a further 3 years. So, we have 36 kids in total in that program – 12 in each year.
The ocean education curriculum is extended, they go into the ocean swimming every second week, they go on more excursions – we take them on outings. Second year, we focus on public speaking - we work with another organisation called Ocean Pledge who have a Marine Ambassadors program where the kids do some intensive public speaking training so that they can go out into their communities and educate for the oceans.
Third year is an Ocean Uprise Year focus where our kids come up with their own Ocean Activist projects – something they want to change in their communities and we support them to do that.
We have worked with other organisations who have seen our Turn the Tide program and we have trained them to implement it through their organisations. We go there and supply our detailed curriculum plans, give training to all their coaches, we give them organisational support on how to manage and run a program like this, we give them all the materials they need and then they can run the program themselves.
How many kids would have gone through the program thus-far?
Probably close to 1000 now have graduated from our 16-week programs but we have got thousands of kids that have attended our once of talks and workshops.
What do you think the biggest change that you see in kids from when they start the program to their finishing – is it just confidence around being near the water and pride as well?
We see so much in terms of actual swimming skills – a lot of the kids when they first come do not want to go further than ankle deep in the water and at the end of the 8 weeks their swimming properly. So the confidence is amazing – taking away the fear of the ocean and replacing it with a healthy respect of the ocean. The knowledge and the love they get for the ocean is amazing! We have an incredible team of ocean educators showing them that the ocean can be a resource for them in terms of what we do with our mindfulness exercises. Its something that they can use for their mental health – if they want to feel calm, if they want to escape, they can come and the ocean can take everything.
Historically and culturally there have been barricades to African people being on the beach and in the water. Historically, this beach was a ‘white beach’ so they were literally not allowed on the beach. Culturally there are taboos and cultural beliefs around the ocean – that there are monsters and things that will take you if you go in the ocean. Then practically there are also barriers – these kids when they come to us do not have swimming costumes, so we provide swimming costumes for them to keep, they get a towel that they can keep, a swimming cap for the girls so that they don’t get their braides wet. We provide the kids with safe transport – collecting them from their schools so they can get their safely, we provide them with a healthy meal after each session – so it’s a very holistic program.
What’s your ambition of where you want to see this go?
The one thing that we are focussing on growing right here is our special needs program. These are the most vulnerable kids you can think of – they are from disadvantaged marginalised communities and they have some very severe physical and learning disabilities. So we have been working with a small pilot group of kids but we have recently received a grant from the US State Department to help build this program a bit more. We are getting specialised equipment; our coaches have received training from the US Para-surfing Olympic Coach which we are going to be integrating into our programs and trying to build on that and make Hout Beach really cater to people with special needs and physical disabilities.
Hopefully we also get requests from a lot of different organisations around the world who say they love the program and want to offer it in their regions throughout the world.
Do you work with other brands?
Parley is our main supporter – they have been with us since the beginning and have been incredible. We also have a partnership with Patagonia and they are also supporting our Turn the Tide program. Apart from that, it's just our community.
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