Corinne Habel, global director of marketing and fundraising at SurfAid, recently spoke to blindboy about SurfAid's expansion across the Indonesian archipelago and their plans for 2016. 

Swellnet: What were the highlights of 2015 for SurfAid?
Corinne: One of the many highlights was the SurfAid merger with the Sumba Foundation of Australia. It resulted in the expansion of our programs into a new area of Indonesia. We've begun implementation of a mother and child programme to complement the water programmes that the Sumba Foundation started. We are stoked to be reaching more people than ever before. Sumba is a pretty remote and isolated area of Indonesia, with a high infant and maternal mortality rate, so we are really happy to be there and to be helping out.

So tell us a bit about the Sumba Foundation.
The Sumba Foundation in Australia was started by Stephen and Kathryn Nolan from the northern beaches in Sydney. Their programs had focused primarily on water projects. They approached SurfAid to expand and integrate with our mother and child programme, which is what we have been able to do. It has been a n exciting and rewarding partnership . 

So what services do you deliver in the mother and child programme?
We almost always start with water. Clean water is critical to the health of a village. Our philosophy is a "hand up" not a "hand out". We work with local communities to find out where the best source of water is, then help establish Water Committees that are responsible for delivering those projects. Communities must contribute to the water project -- they contribute things like sand and stone and labour -- digging wells and trenches for pipes. Once the water facilities are in place we work on simple things like good nutrition, teaching the parents and grandparents what to feed the children. We found local spinach that was being fed to the pigs could be really nutritious for the children and families .  Our programs emphasise positive health behaviours like exclusive breast feeding, hand washing and sleeping under a mosquito net. Low cost, high impact behaviour changes. Simple behaviour changes like washing your hands can reduce diarrhoea rates by about 20%, and that is one of the biggest killers of children under five . 

So what about where it all started in the Mentawais? How has that changed over the years?
Life has been and continues to be a daily struggle for the people of the Mentawai Islands. In 2015, some of the villages finally had permanent housing and clean water. Many families were still living in temporary accommodation following the 2010 earthquake and tsunami. As those surfers that have been there know, the area is really remote and access to the areas is very challenging. SurfAid started in the Mentawai and has a long standing commitment to help the villages there become healthy and thrive. 

A lot of the initial focus was on malaria. Have malaria rates decreased?
Absolutely. Our programs around net distribution and malaria education have helped to get the numbers under control. In areas where malaria is an issue, we continue to distribute nets and work with the communities on how and when to use them.

So if we go back to Sumba for a moment. Have you been there yourself?
Yes, I was lucky enough to visit our field programs in Sumba in April. It's an amazingly beautiful place, with some pretty awesome surf. The contrast is the grinding poverty. I was really struck by the huge amount of need there. When we were there it was pretty lush and the markets had food. But during the dry season -- for about nine months of the year --  it's also called "the hungry season" where very little grows. One of the elements of SurfAid's programs is to help villages with small vegetable gardens that are suitable to the climate. This benefits not only nutrition, but done correctly, can increase household income.

So surfers have made an impact in improving conditions in many areas of Indonesia just by being there and adding to the local economy but it seems as if Sumba has been by passed.

Sumba is pretty isolated and some of the higher end surf camps don't interact at all with the local communities. But some do a good job of trying to give back. Like Nihiwatu Resort where the Sumba Foundation has its roots. 

Yeah, I remember being quoted some ridiculous figure for a week in Sumba by an agent in Bali so we went down there and stayed at the same place for about a quarter or less of the cost.
That is a problem, but then you look at somewhere like Lagundri in Nias, the locals that are running and servicing the surf camps benefit. But go an hours drive inland, the tourist dollars never reach there. So it's not just about the coastal communities which may benefit from tourism but it's also about the people who are off the beaten path. In the Mentawai, where SurfAid started, it was the curiosity of our founder Dr Dave Jenkins that saw him get off his charter boat and check out the island itself.

So how many people have you actually got in the field in Indonesia?
We have 70 Indonesian staff in the field now and one expat. All our staff are local, speak the local languages, and often times we employ people who have grown up in those villages and have been volunteers for SurfAid in their own communities.

So what about 2016?
In 2016, we will be working with over 50,000 people across four program areas in Nias, the Mentawai, Sumba, and Sumbawa. We'll continue to expand our programs, learn from our mistakes and our successes. We've received some terrific additional support from the New Zealand government. We are focusing more on the sustainability of our programs.  Ensuring that the changes that the villages make can long outlast SurfAid's involvement. That includes building small livelihood activities into our projects so that the communities have a source of income. For example, when a water pipe breaks, the communities have the funds and capacity to fix and repair it, not have to turn back to SurfAid for money or expertise.  

..and tsunami preparedness?
Emergency preparedness is ongoing. All the experts predict that a big earthquake and tsunami will hit the area within the next 20 years. We help the communities keep their evacuation plans current and evacuation teams well trained. 

What are your main fund raising activities?
Our flagship event is the SurfAid Cup which are tag team style surf events. While they are competitive, we have a winner for the top fundraising team too. We are always stoked to get a great turnout of pro surfers and local rippers that surf in the comp as well. A pro joins each team and they are selected by the teams in order of amount of funds raised.  SurfAid Cups are run in Manly, Bondi, Margaret River, and Newcastle in Australia. We've also run two in the US in Malibu and Santa Cruz. 

Have you been able to expand your fund raising base over the years?
Yes we absolutely have, particularly in the US. We saw a downturn with the weakening economic situation but it is taking off again, so that's fantastic. We have ongoing strong support in Australia and New Zealand. We have expanded our ongoing partnership with Billabong and a number of other corporate sponsors. Individuals and foundations are also generous supporters of our work.

What about efficiency? How does Surf Aid compare with other charities working in similar areas.
If you look at our ratios they stack up well compared to other charities of similar size. But I think really the important thing to consider is how many lives we are saving. If you look at our programmes, in Nias before SurfAid worked there, in a population of about 10,000 people with about 150 pregnant women per year, 7 or 8 would die, which is statistically astronomical. Just crazy. After 24 months of the SurfAid programme we did not have one mother die and we haven't had one since. We had 22 kids under 5 dying every year. Last year it was just 5. That's still 5 too many but you can really see the numbers going down.

You can be confident that if you give SurfAid a dollar it is going to go to the field, it is going to be invested wisely, with local staff who are going to be right there with the mothers and babies. That's the true impact of your philanthropic dollar!

So would you like to add anything?
It is a really exciting time for SurfAid, we have more and more supporters including the New Zealand Government, the Australian Government, and we've received accreditation from both. This means that when you give money you know that we have been through a rigorous audit processes -- not just of our finances, but of our field programs too. 

Not only are mothers and children not dying but, for every life saved, thousands of other children are receiving positive impacts on their lives. Everybody else is getting healthier and healthier. Sometimes people think that the population goes up as health improves but it is actually the opposite: if a mother has two healthy children, they don't need to have more. So that has an positive impact on the environment as well. The future is bright indeed!

Check out www.surfaid.org/giveagift