May

Achieving Success One Wave at a Time

by Janine Boylan on May 13, 2013

Girls achieving success through surfing with The Wahine Project

It’s a little easier when someone helps you balance.
Photo courtesy Dionne Ybarra, The Wahine Project

The Wahine Project Knows No Barriers

Surfboards used by girls achieving success in The Wahine Project

Dionne Ybarra + surfboards.
Photo courtesy of Dionne Ybarra, The Wahine Project

Early in the morning, a car with a rooftop rainbow of surfboards pulls into the beach parking lot. A group of sweatshirted girls shifts eagerly, and a little sleepily, from one bare foot to the other in the cold Monterey, California, sand.

Dionne Ybarra steps out of her car, and the girls’ faces light up as she greets them each by name.

These are the girls of The Wahine Project, and they are here to surf.

To prepare for their plunge into the sea, the Wahine (wa-hee-nee), or surfer girls, gather in a lopsided circle around Ybarra and, as they transition from one yoga pose to another, they listen intently to her.

Ybarra advises that they might face a challenge in the ocean today, but she encourages, “Remember the last time when you were afraid, and you did it!” Then she reminds the girls that, when they are at school and are feeling worried or unsure, they can draw on the lessons they learn here at the beach.

The pre-surfing circle
Photo courtesy Dionne Ybarra, The Wahine Project

Soon the girls break their circle, grab the boards, and head to the water. Some girls giggle on the water’s edge while others charge straight into the breaking waves. Adult mentors and the more experienced girls encourage the more cautious ones. Everyone is motivated to move at her own pace.

Girl achieving success through surfing with The Wahine Project

With a little encouragement, even the most hesitant eventually achieve success!
Photo courtesy Dionne Ybarra, The Wahine Project

The Beginning of a Great Idea

Ybarra was raised by her well-intentioned mother to be terrified of the water. She didn’t learn to swim until she was 30. And after a few years of swimming, she learned to surf.

In the meantime, in her job as a parent educator, she worked with women through their pregnancies and labor. Instead of just teaching them popular breathing techniques, she wanted to give these women tools they could use beyond labor. She says, “I was exploring ways to integrate things that would help them with birth, with a screaming baby, and with a teenager who wasn’t coming home.”

She thought a lot about how great it would be to empower girls before they grew up and became mothers.

And she thought about how sports help do that.

That is when the Oh, I See Moment struck: Ybarra realized she could provide girls with these life lessons through the sport she had learned to love—surfing.

And The Wahine Project was born.

Opportunities for All

The Wahine Project offers girls a no-barrier opportunity to experience the thrill of surfing.

Ybarra is always collecting donated girls’ and women’s wetsuits and foam-top surfboards. She has found sponsors, including the local surf shop, and recently got a $15,000 grant from the Foundation for Youth Investment.

While there is a monthly donation for participating, Ybarra never wants that to get in the way of a girl surfing. And she even has been known to pick girls up who can’t get a ride to the beach.

All of this is to ensure that these girls gain confidence in the water so that they can take that confidence out of the water. She explains, “Wahine is an action. It’s everything that you are and how you live. Once a Wahine, always a Wahine.”

Learning to love the water.
Photo courtesy Dionne Ybarra, The Wahine Project

Global Influence

Ybarra’s influence has spread beyond her small hometown and down the coast of California to San Diego, where a new Wahine group has formed.

In addition, every year, Ybarra’s Monterey group helps her collect donated swimsuits and other gear. Then, in the summer, she gathers the donations and her boards, and she drives down to her family’s hometown near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. When she arrives in the village, she goes door to door to announce that she has returned to surf with the girls, and she distributes the gifts she has brought.

Ybarra has even reached the young girl surfers in the Gaza Strip, where they wear special full-coverage wetsuits to maintain their cultural beliefs. Her California girls send clothing and letters of encouragement to their Middle Eastern sisters.

And this is only the beginning. She wants to make The Wahine Project synonymous with women’s surfing. She envisions its presence at every women’s surf competition.

Since she herself accepts no barriers, it’s inevitable that The Wahine Project will continue achieving success, one wave at a time.

To learn more about Dionne and her work, see her TEDtalk. You can also follow The Wahine Project on Facebook.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Janine Boylan Comments

Making a Difference

May

Firsts Happen When There’s Courage of Conviction

by Sheron Long on May 2, 2013

Sky showing behind zipper, illustrating firsts that can occur when you show courage of conviction

Reveal the courage of conviction, and push the limits to the sky.
© Hemera

Jason Collins and Wilcox County Teens Push the Limits

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. —Anaïs Nin

Two recent events, startling by both their similarity and difference, make for this week’s “Oh, I See” Moment in the news. Both events show the courage of conviction, the stuff that firsts are made of.

NBA’s Jason Collins Speaks Up

Jason Collins became the first male athlete on a major professional sports team to share publicly that he is gay. The acknowledgment was a life-changer even for this game-changing basketball player.

Road signs, illustrating firsts that can occur when you show courage of conviction

Jason Collins is moving forward.
© iStockphoto

As he told Sports Illustrated about his decision to come out, ” I felt whole for the first time.”

Four Teens Take Action

At prom time this April in Wilcox County, Georgia, four teens relied on their courage as well. The high school there does not put on a prom. Instead, even after schools were desegregated over 40 years ago, white proms and black proms hosted by parents have been the tradition.

This year, however, Quanesha Wallace, Stephanie Sinnot, Mareshia Rucker, and Keela Bloodworth decided to break through that tradition and put on the first integrated prom, themed “Masquerade Ball in Paris.”

It took courage and great effort by these teens, two who are white and two who are black. Why did they do it? The long-time friends, who attend classes and football games together and who sleep over at each other’s homes, also wanted to build joyful memories of their senior prom together.

In other words, like Jason Collins, they wanted to feel whole. And, because of their courage, life expanded for Jason and these teens.

2013 scratched in sand, showing a modern year when firsts are still happening

A modern year, yet the tide of change is still incomplete.
© iStockphoto

Tides of Change

The fact that these two events happened in 2013 in the United States of America, however, is where the differences come in.

How is it that Jason Collins, a black athlete, felt fear and limitations not because of his race but because of his sexuality, while in the same month four teens were fighting against segregation, which was outlawed in the schools in 1954?

Oh, I see. The tide of change moves slowly. Sixty years from now, there will be people pushing past new frontiers of acceptance while (hopefully many fewer) members of the gay community still feel fearful of acknowledging their identity or even encounter unfair treatment.

But change that lifts the limits on individuals’ happiness and self-respect will come. The way to speed it up is for more people to show courage of conviction, speaking out and taking action to pave the road for the people who follow them. While it is sometimes the hardest thing to do, surely the most important is to

Typography spelling the word "Start," to prompt people to follow the courage of their conviction

It takes courage to start.
© iStockphoto

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Sheron Long Comments

Making a Difference/Stereotypes

Apr

Random Acts of Kindness Flow with “Suspended” Coffee

by Meredith Mullins on April 25, 2013

man drinking large coffee after receiving a random act of kindness of a suspended coffee

Coffee warms the heart and spirit
© Fuse Collection

Starting the Day Off Right

“I’ll have a decaf espresso, a caffe latte, a double decaf cappuccino, and a caffe sospeso.”

This could be a scene from LA Story, a barista’s nightmare, or a reminder of how coffee drinking has taken us into a labyrinthe of choices.

It could be all those things . . . but in this instance it’s an order at a coffee shop, sprinkled with a random act of kindness.

Caffe Sospeso: “Suspended Coffee”

The hidden gift in this order is caffe sospeso, an Italian tradition born in Naples that is taking hold around the world.

Caffe sospeso is not an extravagant new coffee concoction. It means, in literal translation, “suspended coffee.”

In practice, this custom is a heartwarming “pay it forward” story. When people buy a coffee, they pay for an extra coffee (or two).

This suspended coffee “offer” then waits for someone in need, someone who asks if there are any suspended coffees available because he or she can’t afford to buy one.

man drinking european coffee after receiving a random act of kindness of a caffe sospeso

Cafés use a coupon system, bottle caps, or tokens to keep track of the available suspended coffees. They post a suspended coffee sign in the window to let those in need know a hot coffee might be available through a stranger’s generosity.

A Cup of Coffee for All Humanity

The suspended coffee idea is a reminder that we can help people who are less fortunate in many ways—modest or mighty. An important Oh, I see moment.

The original Neapolitan proverb said it best—”This is a way to offer a cup of coffee to all humanity.”

Man in furry hood drinks coffee after receiving a random act of kindness of suspended coffee.

This coffee “movement” has now taken root from the UK to Bulgaria to Australia to the U.S. Word is spreading that this tradition is a simple way to offer kindness to strangers.

The “Suspended Coffee Supporter Facebook page has more than 76,000 fans and keeps people updated on cafés that are joining the caffe sospeso community (or, if you’re in Taiwan, the “suspended noodles” community).

Pay It Forward

The beauty of this kind of movement is that it inspires other acts of kindness. Grocery stores and restaurants are also following this path. Spontaneous “pay it forward” moments are becoming legendary in many countries.

People pay for the next person in line at a drive-in.
A man performs 65 random acts of kindness on his 65th birthday.
An 8-year-old boy opens a lemonade stand to help a neighbor whose house was damaged in a storm.
A competitor carries her injured opponent over the finish line.

The stories are (thankfully) endless.

In a time when bad news often seems to outweigh the good, random acts of kindness can help to shift the balance and make us feel good again about humanity.

The gift can be as simple as a cup of coffee.

Hot coffee warms the soul . . . for the one drinking and for the one who has given an anonymous gift. A little kindness can go a long way.

hands holding coffee and cigarette after a random act of kindness with a suspended coffee

If you like the idea of suspended coffee, talk with your local coffee shop and start the coffee flowing.

And, if you’d like an extra random act of kindness, take a look at this video. It’s not coffee-related, but it will sure make you feel good.

If video does not display, watch it here.

Today is International Pay It Forward Day, so visit the Pay It Forward Foundation site to see what you can do.