The 4th Annual Surf Liberia Contest

Four years ago, Nate and I  hosted the 1st Annual Surf Liberia Contest at Shipwrecks in Robertsport. This year again, with partner Surf Resource Network, we're thrilled to be a part of such a great event.

Get there, if you can, and be a part of Liberian surf history.

We'll have t-shirts for sale at the event and The African T-Shirt Company will be re-launching just in time, with a full stock of Liberian and African-themed t-shirts to order!

Pics from the 2nd Annual Surf Liberia Contest

On October 24, a group of local and expatriate surfers gathered under the cotton tree at the Robertsport Community Campsite to convene the 2nd Annual Surf Liberia Contest. T-shirts were passed out and surfers registered, but where were the waves?

We waited until low tide then made the call for Shipwrecks, carried over chairs from Nana's Lodge and set up under an almond tree. We had 12 local surfers and 7 expats, including a few beginners and very new local beginners. You know you've succeeded in targeting youth when one of the contestants signs his name, "Baby Boy."

The contest lasted a little over three hours, with judging done by local and expat surfers as well as the visiting Surf Resource Network crew. We had over a hundred spectators, including Robertsport locals and weekenders, some UNMIL visitors, and even half of the Mama Liberia Sewing Co-op! The waves were a bit onshore, shoulder to head-high with some overhead sets on the drop quickly turning to mushy faces.

Of course, when it came time for the women's heat right before the finals, the swell surged to overhead plus and I got smoked--along with the relative and extremely brave newbie I'd cajoled into surfing with me. Better luck for the women's division next year!

Thanks to Robertsport Community Works partners Soul Surfers Foundation, Seren Clothing and Surf Resource Network. Thanks to our Surf Liberia contest event sponsors Nana's Lodge, Liberia Travel and Life Magazine, and Miss Boss Lady Entertainment. We value your support!

Here are some photos, courtesy of Surf Resource Network's Sean Brody, of the contest:

Alfred Lomax finishes a heat. Alfred is currently on scholarship courtesy of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and attending high school in Monrovia.

Alfred does a cut-back at Shipwrecks.
Alfred wins the contest and is chaired to the beach by fellow surfers. This is my favorite contest shot.
Alfred, 1st place in this year's Surf Liberia Contest, with a wooden plaque hand-carved in Robertsport.

Peter Swen, a university student in Monrovia, pulls into a little barrel before giving Alfred a run for his money and winning 2nd place.
Armstrong shows some local style on his newly-donated board.
Philip has gotten a lot better this year, thanks in part to a surfboard of his own donated by the Soul Surfers Foundation. Thank you!
Sam Brown Jr. looks remarkably like his father, Sam Brown, a member of our Community Board and an invaluable member of Robertsport Community Works. His board was donated by Surf Resource Network. Thank you!
For a full budget overview of Surf Liberia and the surf contest, check out the monthly budget reports on our Robertsport Community Works blog.

See you in the water next year!

2nd Surf Liberia Contest next weekend!

I've been spending today getting all the details ready for next weekend's 2nd Annual Surf Liberia contest. Learn more here if you think you can make it. Email me if you plan to compete!

Here are the details:

The contest will run on the morning of Saturday, 23 October if the waves are good. If not, it will be postponed until the afternoon, or even Sunday morning or afternoon. Once we begin, the contest will take about three hours.

We have three partners supporting us this year: Soul Surfers Foundation, Seren Clothing and the Surf Resource Network. Soul Surfers sponsors our Surf Liberia mentoring program in the Uptown community, the Surf Resource Network is helping us run the contest and the boys at Seren Clothing (both of whom I went to school with in Cairo) did the t-shirt.

Solomon thinks its really cool. I agree. He's helping us have a first run-off of 60 made for next Saturday. We'll put them on The African T-Shirt Company, which will also see some new energy in the next few months...

We'll have live commentary, prizes for 1st to 4th place, and it's the best place to see all the local surfers side by side, representing Liberia. Nana's Lodge and Miss Boss Lady Entertainment are the lead Liberian sponsors, contributing to the Surf Liberia Mentoring Project and lending us a hand with the organizing.

Hope to see you at the contest!

The 2nd Annual Surf Liberia Contest: 9/10 October 2010

Photo of Liberian surfer Armstrong (no pun intended) courtesy of Myles Estey.

Robertsport Community Works is pleased to announce the 2nd Annual Surf Liberia Contest, to be held on the weekend of 9-10 October on the surfing beach in Robertsport, wherever the waves look like they're breaking best.

Participants and volunteers will meet at the Robertsport Community Campsite cotton tree on Saturday 9 October at 9:00 am to decide which break is working best. We'll postpone to the afternoon/next morning/next afternoon if we expect conditions to markedly improve.

If you'd like to participate, send me an email. Registration for participants is $25 and you get a cool contest t-shirt designed by Liberian graphic designer Efren Rebugio Jr. Shirts will also be on sale at the contest site and though The African T-Shirt Company. All profits go directly to the RCW Surf Liberia Mentoring program. Local surfers compete for free.

We hope to organize a fun, relaxed event that showcases the local surfers' skills and sportsmanship, and to have a fun day at the beach!

Surf Liberia becomes a mentorship program

When we started our Surf Liberia Scholarship program over a year ago, our idea was to offer an alternative vehicle for sponsoring surfers that didn't involve throwing them cash and encouraging a consumer-based lifestyle.

We wanted surfing to be a positive force for change for themselves and their community--to grow leaders through surfing. So we paid their school fees instead.

Fast-forward one year. Nevermind we may not be the *only* people paying their school fees (gasp!). When we asked two surfers what they wanted to do with their sponsorship money, they said they wanted to buy clothes. They thought about it and that's what they came up with. I'm not saying they shouldn't buy clothes, but not with Surf Liberia money. So what good is this money doing?

Nate works professionally at a variety of educational initiatives and projects involving young people and we know we want to impact the local surfers in a way that helps them realize personal and professional goals, whatever they might be. So we're revisioning our Surf Liberia project--which has raised almost $500 in t-shirt sales to date--to be more mentoring oriented and less about just giving young surfers money and equipment. We'll still do that, but we'll have better boundaries and parameters about what we will and will not support.

For example, seed money to start a business, cool. Money to go clothes shopping in Monrovia, probably not. Thanks to Soul Surfers Foundation for their support for Robertsport Community Works and this project: Alfonzo and Phillip are holding donated surfboards above (this photo, btw, was taken in May). They're the ones who aren't getting the clothes, but they have new surfboards. I think they'll get over it.

Robertsport Community Works announces a partnership with Soul Surfers Foundation

Robertsport Community Works is proud to announce a partnership with Soul Surfers Foundation, a Dutch non-profit that supports surfing-oriented development and humanitarian work. We've been selected as their featured project for 2010 and will be working closely with them to develop projects that support conservation, water safety and help promote local surfing in Robertsport. They're also coming to visit us in February, which I look forward to writing about.

In 2009, Soul Surfers gave us a grant of 1000 euros to support our nascent water safety program, bolster Surf Liberia's efforts to mentor and support local surfers, and to help make our monthly Community Beach Cleanup sustainable. We're in the process of receiving this money and will be sharing with you how we intend to put it to good use.

Thank you, Soul Surfers!

Robertsport Community Campsite in the NYT Travel Section!

Photos courtesy of Sean Brody and the New York Times.

Last Sunday, the Robertsport Community Campsite made the Travel Section of the New York Times. The article, written by 'The House of Sugar Beach' author and NYT correspondent Helene Cooper, focuses on the nascent tourism industry in Robertsport and the growth of local surfing by following the life of Benjamin McCrumuda, who has also recently been profiled in Surfers' Journal. Ben, who usually stands in Alfred's shadow, is going to be chuffed to get copies of these this weekend, that's for sure. There's also a shout-out to RCW Board of Directors member Magnus Wolfe Murray, whose expertise and involvement you'll be hearing about more this year.
I'll let you check out the article, with a few caveats. The waves are not actually 20 feet, you can't surf from Shipwrecks to the campsite cotton tree, and Benjamin remains a fisherman and a surfer. Enjoy!

Rules and scoring from the 1st Annual Surf Liberia Contest

Here are the rules Nate drew up, read to competitors and kept with the judges during the 1st Annual Surf Liberia Contest:

1. Marshal is right. [Marshal is the head judge and one of the most respected surfers in the water. He's also the eldest, so culturally this presented no issue to the local surfers -- or anyone, for that matter. We all love Marshal.]
2. Bad sportsmanship, bad attitudes and rude behavior are causes for disqualification.
3. Whoever is sitting deepest has the right of way.
4. Judge the maneuvers, not the wave and not the length of the ride.
5. Dropping in, interfering, collapsing sections, leash pulling and snaking all constitute interference. If you think this is happening, tell Marshal.
   

Here's what was on the score sheet. I find it a little intimidating, but we had to come up with something. Thanks to the Eastern Surf Association and the peeps of NYNJSurf.com for helping us put the rules and criteria together.

"Please use whole or half points unless expressing small differences in the excellent range.

0-2: Wipe-outs, shaky rides, rides straight to the beach
3-4: Rides with little confidence and no real turns or with one maneuver and nothing else
5-6: Average waves -- a couple of turns but nothing bold, no variety: just a safe ordinary ride
7-8: Good, confident varied ride with a couple high quality turns/moves, but not too risky/bold
9-10: Excellent rides: surfer stays in the pocket, making big moves at critical sections, shows commitment, flow and variety. Barrels, airs, huge spray, top class."

I have a spreadsheet of all the participants' wave scores, so e-mail me if you were in the contest and want to see how you did.

1st Annual Surf Liberia Contest

Photo of Alfred Lomax (left) and Keith Chapman (right) courtesy of Myles Estey.

A hearty congratulations to the winners of the 1st Annual Surf Liberia Contest. In the men's surfing division, Alfred Lomax came in 1st place with a cash prize of $200, Keith Chapman in 2nd with a cash prize of $100, Benjamin McCrumada in 3rd with a cash prize of $50 and a rashguard, and Peter Swen in 4th with a rashguard. In the bodyboarding division, Keith Chapman also came in 1st and got a rashguard. We hope to have a women's division in the contest next year and to have more surf-related prizes.

Thanks to Liberia Travel and Life Magazine for putting up the prize money and the surfers of BHP for donating the rashguards. Thanks also to Nana's Lodge for helping with equipment and logistics, and for hiring young men from the community to clean the beach over the whole weekend of their larger event. Thanks also to Myles Estey in advance for letting me steal this photo of the winners from his blog. We'll have more photos to post when he generously stops by and drops them off, as we're still too weak recovering from typhoid and malaria to actually leave the house...

This year's contest was held in November to coincide with the 1st Annual Nana's Lodge Sports Festival and Family Fun Weekend, a three-day extravaganza of football contests, volleyball tournaments, sand castle building and face-painting, not to mention beach bonfires and live performances. The weekend sounded like a great success. Unfortunately, as Nate and I were still recovering, we had to keep our presence to a minimum and only came up for the surf contest and a quick meeting with the Women's Sewing Coop.

We got lucky on the contest weekend with long-period swell, almost no wind and head-high waves during the semi-frequent sets. I'll let Nate post more about the surfing and the conditions with some photos (by Myles). Suffice to say it was an unexpectedly good day in a dry season prone to baby swell and occasional onshores. There was some fun surfing. Next year, we'll hold it in the rainy season when there's proper swell, but for 2009, we did good with the waves we got.

By the way, all proceeds from surfers' entry fees go to the Surf Liberia Scholarship Fund, which pays part of the school fees for local surfers we sponsor -- the other part they raise themselves through working in Robertsport Community Works projects or giving surf lessons. Now that we're raised a bit, although through the sale of our Surf Liberia t-shirts, more local surfers are eligible for scholarships based on their scores in the contest.

Because Nate and I needed to maximize our energy for the day, we got a ride up and back with a generous friend, also the head judge and one of the chillest and best people to have in the Liberian lineup. That was helpful, as we had about an hour to set up and register people once we arrived, which I did from a hammock at the campsite. Another friend saw we were looking a bit ragged and drove us in his 4x4 from the cotton tree to Shipwrecks, where we'd decided -- based on the swell coming in at Inner Cottons -- to hold the event. It was pretty fun driving on the sand, hanging out the window and waving to everyone, I have to say.

Once we got to the beach, there was a small crowd lined up under the shade of the almond trees. The local surfers, who'd all had their entry fees waived in lieu of becoming volunteers, had set up plastic tables and chairs, which we shaded with judges' beach umbrellas and made look rather official. Nate had written up scoring criteria and judging sheets, and we'd had a pizza and beer meeting at the head judge's house a few nights before to decide how things would go.

Before we started, we got everyone together, went over the rules -- 20 minute heats of three to start, how waves would be scored, penalties for interference -- and emphasized that the whole point of everything was to enjoy each other, represent surfing in Liberia, and have a good time. The local surfers were intent, focused and visibly a little nervous. We started the first heat with a siren from our borrowed megaphone, and so the contest began. Highlights included a fantastic showing by a novice, S., who charged without hesitation into steep shoulder-high waves, and the moment when Ben's new board broke and Myles rushed out to loan him his thruster. We even had a member of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in attendance and a video journalist from Reuters filming and interviewing the local surfers and the community, so expect to see a link to that piece soon.

My heartfelt thanks and gratitude to all of you who helped to make Liberia's first surfing contest the relaxed and enjoyable event it was. Neither Nate nor I are big into competitive surfing, but it was important for the local surfers to represent their sport and help them legitimize surfing in Liberia. We'll see what opportunities it brings them. In the meantime: judges, helpers, volunteers, supporters and well-wishers -- you know who you are, and we very literally could not have done it without you.

Kwaipuna!

Behind Surf Tourism

Now and then Robertsport Community Works is approached by international journalists who seek a better understanding of our mission and our projects. In a recent interchange with a journalist who has considerable experience with surf publications and sub-Saharan travel, we were asked a question that gets to the heart of surf tourism:

"How much are you interested in increasing surf tourism in the area, and how much are you interested in just seeing to it that whatever comes is positive, clean and beneficial to the locals?"

Waves can only handle a certain number of surfers before they get crowded and become an unrelaxing hassle. All of the expatriate locals in Liberia enjoy waves that are shockingly uncrowded; they can be hesitant to embrace programs that provide Liberians with more surfboards or initiatives that attract more foreign surfers.

This journalist's question probably splits surf communities apart more often than it knits them together. My original thinking was definitely protectionist. I wanted to "see to it that whatever comes is positive, clean and beneficial to the locals" and I looked forward to enjoying the uncrowded waves with a few good friends. But against my own better interests as a surfer, we're focusing more and more on "increasing surf tourism in the area."

Why work to clutter up something that sometimes feels special because it is so isolated? The answer can be found in a raft of analytical documents about Liberia's current vulnerability. Youth unemployment is estimated at around 50% (at the absolute lowest) and opportunities for education and employment border on non-existent. This is the most destabilizing fact about this country--and it is a fact that is making many investors (private and governmental) too worried to inject real cash into the Liberian economy. Tourism can add to the nation's stability by providing lots of low-skill jobs and by providing a clear incentive to control violence and the country's public image.

I'd rather see more surfers in the water if it brings more jobs and if they help to jump start the tourism industry of Liberia. Sitting at the inaugural meetings of the Tourism Association of Liberia--to which Robertsport Community Works is offering support--makes it clear how much work must go into rebranding a country that is still widely associated with terrible things. Surfers are often some of the most adventurous travelers, some of the people who are most willing to give image-challenged nations a second chance--and then to brag about it to everyone they know.

Liberia doesn't need a closely guarded secret; Liberia needs help.

Surf Liberia Scholarship Fund

Our Surf Liberia shirts are in production, with the profits going towards a surf scholarship program for Liberian surfers. We intend to continue Surf Liberia fundraising with t-shirt, rashguards, stickers and an annual surf competition.

At the moment, we’re raising money for school fees and associated costs for Benjamin McCrumuda, Alfred Lomax and Peter Swen, but all sponsorship will be annual and based on merit, so we hope to expand the pool in the future as well as bring in corporate sponsors to supplement our costs.

Sponsorship will include surfer scholarships, equipment and career mentorship, with the surfers contributing to their school fees through surfing lessons, branded boards and rashguards, and community service.

All shirts are $10, not inclusive of shipping and handling. Profits go 100% to the Scholarship Fund. We have women's shirts in assorted colors, styles and sizes and men's white t-shirts in Medium, Large and X-Large. We ship around the world and take PayPal.

Email scholarship@robertsportcommunityworks.org to order shirts and support our Surf Liberia Scholarship Fund!

Robertsport Community Works

This space will chronicle the development and progress of Robertsport Community Works, a community-based NGO in Robertsport, Liberia based on the following principles:

1. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS is grounded on the principles of a community-based approach to environmentally sustainable development, and will work to foster and support the entrepreneurial spirit within and around the local Robertsport community. 

2. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS recognizes the biodiversity and ecological integrity of Liberia’s coasts are necessary and irreplaceable. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS is committed to preserving natural living and non-living diversity and ecological integrity of the coastal environment.

3. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS is dedicated to enhancing tourism and wave-riding opportunities in ways that will positively impact the Robertsport community and not adversely impact nearshore ecosystems.

4. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS is dedicated to enhancing sustainable energy, food systems and recycling within the Cape Mount County and Robertsport community, promoting local food production and renewable energy systems.

5. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS believes that education is essential to the future health and wellbeing of Cape Mount County and the Robertsport community. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS seeks to develop programs and utilize educational materials that are informative, factual, proactive, synergistic and fun.

6. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS strives to be accurate and nonpartisan in its communications with its members and the general public. In addition, ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS will express the unique values inherent in wave-riding — individualism, camaraderie, non-materialism, and an appreciation for human kind's historic relations with the Ocean.

7. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS is a grassroots organization, effective through the participation and support of the Robertsport and Cape Mount community, international and national governmental and non-governmental partners, and the private sector. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS activities emphasize the value of an involved community base.

8. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS will not permit sponsors to divert the organization from its mission or projects undertaken.

9. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin for any reason.

10. ROBERTSPORT COMMUNITY WORKS and its representatives and affiliations agree to abide by these principles and all rules and regulations governing non-profit organizations.

If the principles look like the ones Surfrider Foundation is based on, it's because they are -- with health education, recycling and food and energy sustainability thrown in for good measure. 

We're in the early stages of registering now, finding lawyers to help with paperwork and making the appropriate introductions to local government, community leaders, the private sector and others we'll be working with closely. 

All of us -- founders, community leaders, surfers, Board of Directors members, women in the sewing project, men employed by Beach Clean Up, and many more -- will be filling this space regularly with our successes and challenges, sharing our experiences and forging partnerships with others like us who are engaged in similar work around the world.  

Every month, we'll post our income and expenditures to encourage community ownership and organizational transparency. The same copy will be chalked onto a blackboard at the Robertsport Community Campsite for community members to see and respond to. More about the campsite in our next post.

We welcome comments, suggestions, and collaborative partnerships from all sides. 

-- Elie Losleben