What is Surfer Grrrls Brazil?

The Quick Summary

Surfer Grrls Brazil is a multi-faceted project that includes:

• my own personal adventure as a girl surfer and musician traveling the coast of Brazil
• story telling and multi-media production around my own adventures and those of other women surfers I meet along the way
• network building to share these stories and empower women and girls in the outdoors

The slightly longer story behind Surfer Grrrls Brazil

Surfer Grrrls Brazil started out as a personal “adventure of a lifetime.”  I received an “adventure grant” from the Matt Baxter III Memorial Fund for NatureBridge employees — to travel the coast of Brazil on a solo surf safari.  Because I love Brazilian music and am a writer and lyricist, I also planned to check  out local music and write raps along the way.

As I prepared for my journey, I started thinking more about the power of media and story telling.  I realized that I was going on a very exciting adventure where I would be pushing myself in many ways, and that as a surfing, music-making, solo-traveling young woman of color heading to Brazil for the first time, my story might inspire others to take risks, get outdoors, and be their own unique selves.  It is no secret that much of the media aimed towards young women today is about looking and acting a certain way.  The candy-coated images of “surfer girls” which occasionally make it into the meda are more about sex appeal than surfing.  Equally disturbing is the lack of representation in the mainstream media of people of color in the outdoors.  If you are a little brown girl growing up in the United States, it can be hard to picture yourself becoming a surfer, or a rock climber, or a skier, or a hiker, if you never see images of people who look like you filling these roles.

I decided to make Surfer Grrrls Brazil something bigger, which creates media and tells stories that empower women and girls as travelers, musicians, surfers, and outdoor adventurers.  I have created this website where I can share the stories of my own adventures and the stories of other women and girls I meet along the way.  I am also networking with other organizations interested in sharing these stories and empowering women in the outdoors.  I am teaming up with my friend Miho Aida who has been working for the past 4 years as a documentary filmmaker and public speaker to tell the stories of female role models in the outdoors all around the world through her project, “If She can do it, You can too.”  We are deeply grateful to our many supporters who contributed to our Indiegogo campaign and enabled us to make Surfer Grrrls Brazil the project that it is today.  You can help spread the word by sharing this site with friends and other organizations.