Combined with the drive to supply high quality gear to our surfers, paddlers and other water sports fanatics, we also want to use our amazing industries to empower those wanting a better, brighter future ahead of them, especially for the youth and underprivileged who don’t have the same opportunities already laid out in front of them.
Through Kudla Surf and our partner operations, we offer opportunities for empowerment. Learning new skills, gaining new competencies, building self confidence and belief, developing a hard-working dedicated work ethic and striving to be the best each person can be are what we provide.
We want to help provide or at least highlight and educate those intersted about all the options that exist in the aquatic industries. From all the sports and choices of trying new activities and excelling at them, to being able to gain qualifications, training and competnece to a level that allows someone to gain employment in one of the indsutries, there is so much that the aquatic industries as a whole can provide and we want to help people see these options and be able to benefit from and take advantage of them if they are interested.
Our WoW Jokul Program is offered to local children from the fishing villages and coastal areas. It is offered for free to them and is something that we feel honoured and privileged to be able to provide. We feel it is part of our dharma, part of our commitment to helping others fulfil their potential, offer them opportunities, give them a chance to take control over their future and for them to be proactive in carving out a future of hope and enable them to do things that otherwise would not be possible. Jokul means child, children or youth in Tulu which is the local language of where we are based in the Mangalore area of the TuluNadu region of Karnataka. (Kudla is also a Tulu word. It is the name for the city of Mangalore)
Please see our WoW Jokul Page for more information on the program and what it entails.
Our goal through this program is to teach and build the skills and confidence in our Jokul empowering them to be better. The skills, knowledge and confidence that they gain can lead to simply them being able to participate in these new sports for fun and sport if that is all they want to do.
However for most of the Jokul, they also understand that not only can this be great fun for a past time and new sport to enjoy but also a pathway for their future.
They can become athletes competing in regional, state, national and potentially international competitions. They can become lifeguards working on the beaches in the growing number of beaches and aquatic environments where lifeguards are being employed and paid to work. They can become
- surf instructors working at the growing number of surf schools,
- stand up paddle instructors working at a growing number of SUP schools,
- working as instructors or guides in other growing water sports like kayaking, prone paddling, foiling
- working in other roles within these aquatic operations
- there is always also the chance of them in the future starting and running their own aquatic businesses in the future
This is the hugely powerful impact we can provide for the children who want to work hard and strive for a better future for themselves and their families. We feel humbled to be able to give people this chance to better their future.
Many of the children may come from very hard lives, living well below the poverty line, living in housing made of sticks from trees, cardboard and plastic sheeting over the top to make it weather proof. Where 2 families with 12 or more adults and children could easily be living in a tent structure smaller than a single garage and some days there maybe not enough food for 2 proper nutritious meals a day.
To offer children stuck in a family cycle of poverty the opportunity to drastically change their future by empowering them with learning new skills and knowledge, building their self belief and self confidence, is truly a gift and life changing for everyone involved!
Profits made by Kudla Surf are directly invested in providing these programs, and also building and growing them so we can have more children be involved and positively affect an increasing number of futures!
