Squeals of pleasure throughout the seaside as youngster refugees study to surf the English seaside
“Nothing to see!” says 11-year-old Homaira to the beach-goers as she walks down Croyde’s wide beach to the sea. “Just a normal day!” The group of 15 schoolgirls know their faces and swimming hijabs mark them out on the sandy shoreline of North Devon, but they carry their surfboards onwards anyway.
“If it’s a big wave,” one little girl says with nervous bravado, “I’ll stand up!” Like the others, she comes from a country with no coastline. It’s a rainy day, and the clouds hang black in the distance, making the seawater dark. But in the water, something happens – “something always happens”, the instructor, and founder of Wave Wahines, Yvette Cave says.
Within the hour, the girls – who have all fled war and terror in Iran, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – are flying in on the waves as if they had been born in water, under the gentle tuition of Yvette and Flo Job. Among them are girls who in landlocked Afghanistan – under the Taliban – would not be allowed to go to school, or play in the street, let alone fly along waves shrieking with laughter.
“I wish we could bottle it,” Yvette, 46, says, in the Mirror’s latest film in our ‘Island of Strangers’ series. “All you can hear is squeals of joy across the beach. That sudden change from trepidation to ecstasy – I wish you could bottle it so other people could see it. The beauty of this work is that it doesn’t matter what their background is and has happened, but when you put people in the sea they have this wonderful moment of just everything else gets shut out, all the noise is somewhere else.
“I couldn’t put it into words. It’s so beautiful and it just fills me with love, with joy, pure happiness. No-one has noticed the rain or the howling wind. Everyone is smiling, everyone is enjoying the waves, everyone is cheering each other on. It’s the spirit of Aloha right here.”
The surfing lessons are a collaboration between Yvette’s passion project, Wave Wahines, and the Pickwell Foundation, a locally-founded refugee organisation that supports and runs national welcome schemes and those navigating the asylum system. The Mirror has been attending sessions with the filmmaker John Domokos to tell the story of the girls set free in the waves.
For Yvette, Wave Wahines is not just about challenging the stereotypes of surfing, but returning the sport to its origins, when Hawaiian queens were among the Polynesian women – or Wahines – who took to the surf. “If you close your eyes and ask someone to conjure up a surfer in their head, nine times out of ten they will be white, suntanned, blonde, blue-eyed, probably male, very athletic,” Yvette says. “I was quite often – in fact, always – the only person of colour in the room, let alone only woman of colour in a space talking about surfing. That is where Wave Wahines was born.”
For the staff and volunteers at Pickwell, the project is about using the natural environment on the coast of North Devon to help children overcome trauma – however they arrived in the UK. The Afghan girls surfing today did not come in small boats, but were invited via the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme – because their fathers all worked for or with the British government in Afghanistan. But having been ripped from their lives during the Taliban invasion in 2021, and with family members still living under the regime, their trauma is very real.
“Many of our young girls and their mums have sisters and grandmas still impacted by that oppression and brutality at the hands of the Taliban,” the Pickwell Foundation’s Nicola Jenner says at the charity’s Welcome Hub for refugees and asylum seekers in Barnstaple. For other girls who have taken part in the surf sessions, being in water is a way of processing the direct trauma of crossing the channel. “We do support many people who came in small boats,” Nicola, 44, says. “That trauma is carried across the sea and then when you’re in a location like we are, you’re surrounded by water.
“It takes courage to go back down to the water after such a traumatic journey. That’s why it’s so powerful working with people like Yvette, because they understand those traumas, and they understand that relationship with the sea.”
Homaira’s father was a policeman in Afghanistan, making him an instant target for the Taliban. Her mum, Sharifa, 47, was an English teacher in Kabul, who liked to teach Charles Dickens to her Afghan students.
“When the Taliban came, my husband had to go into hiding, and things were very, very difficult,” Sharifa says, making cardamom tea at the family home. “Before that Afghan ladies were free, we could do anything, we had a good life – but suddenly when the Taliban came everything changed. As a woman you are very powerful, but then someone comes along and binds your hand, and shuts your mouth. You have to stay home and do nothing. Now, I am so happy for my children, especially my daughter.”
Her husband, who we can’t name, had a high status job in Kabul, but now works in the local fish processing factory. “Once when he came home he was so tired, he had some pain in his hands and my son started to cry, ‘we don’t want to see my father in this situation’,” Sharifa says. “Then I told him, ‘every job is good, I am proud of my husband, you should be proud of your father. He is working for his family’.”
While we are in North Devon, tensions are mounting in ports across the country, building towards ‘patriot’ protests, where masked men will line the streets to prevent lifeboats launching, and even slash small boats. “We don’t expect as a human that everyone loves us,” Sharifa says quietly. “There are lots of people with different ideas, different morals, and attitudes.”
Nicola was working with Pickwell on the Homes for Ukrainians scheme, when she heard that a 150 asylum seekers would be arriving at the Dilkhusa Hotel in nearby Ilfracombe. When she heard anti-migrant protesters were mobilising in the town, Nicola was among locals who gathered outside the Dilkhusa’s windows holding hearts that could be seen inside, and singing ‘All You Need Is Love’.
For Pam Lang, 74, volunteering at the hotel turned to be a lifeline. “I was in a very bad way when the asylum hotel opened,” she says, washing the dishes at the accommodation Pickwell is renovating for a group of new sanctuary-seekers. “My husband died very suddenly in the street, when we were on a dream holiday in Bali. And, after that, my reason for getting up in the morning was gone.
“Then the asylum hotel opened in Ilfracombe, and because I’d been a nurse, a local doctor asked me if I could help out. I can’t think I’d ever met an asylum seeker before. I said yes, when I had no intention… But then one cold, dark January morning I took a leap of faith and went into the hotel.”
She looks up from the soapy dishes. “What that hotel did – it sounds cheesy but it melted me. Even doing little things like finding a size eight pair of shoes for someone, felt meaningful. Whatever we gave to them, we got back manifold. I learned it was alright to cry and I certainly learned that it was okay to laugh – I used to feel guilty if I was laughing. I started to live again. Staff at Pickwell are supporting the Home Office in shaping new resettlement pathways, using the lessons they have learned in North Devon.
Homaira has learned to be proud of the fact she has two cultures and three languages – while her mum hopes she will one day be able to help girls back in the land she was born in. “I need my daughter to take the hands of women or girls who are left in Afghanistan,” Sharifa says.
Sharifa adds that they would never want to leave North Devon. “Since I am here, I think I was born here,” she says, shyly. “I don’t feel as a stranger here – because we have two homes now.”
Back at the beach, when Yvette asks, “who wants to come tomorrow?” the response is a chorus of “yes!” Homaira dusts herself off from the sand, and declares she is going to take up surfing. “That was flipping great!” she says.
