Wow. I don’t quite know how to express the gratitude I feel for being here in Bali, attending the world’s first Surf + Social Good Summit. This small team led by big-brained, open-hearted, massive-wave surfer Easkey Britton has pulled together something that is more than immense.
Gule, Lizzie, Stephanie, Danny, dream girls, all.
Hosted at the Cashew Tree, a divine venue at the top of the cliff overlooking Bingin beach around 40 of us convened to open the gathering, the unconference conference.
I was welcomed as family from the first stroke; not even checking my registration. The first ‘stranger’ to say, “hey, you were surfing Bingin today, weren’t you?” turned out to be world longboarding champion, Cori Shumacher.
Already blown away, we mingle with creative, beautiful, inspiring surfers, mainly women who are doing incredible things through their sport and are more than welcoming of our crew from Sri Lanka. So many links and connections already. So much magic just started.
Easkey delivers a typically inspiring, creative opening address which humbly showcases the incredible journey she has already made through her surfing career, from the big cold waves in the north west of Ireland, to Teahupoo at 16, to pioneering adventures in Iran, teaching women and men, girls and boys how to surf.
This is followed by Wendy, creative leadership partner to Easkey, and Indonesia’s tourism minister and thinker. He talks empoweringly about Indonesia’s future. There are so many parallels with Sri Lanka. He expresses his aspirations about Indonesia rising to be on top, to be in a position to give.
We are invited to speak about our adventure to get our two Sri Lankan ambassadors to Bali, and to the Summit. As a delegation, we are honoured to be so welcomed. It is evident that the magic has just begun.
deborahkrupski 