As the gate swings open, four old dogs play in the yard, noses to the dirt, weaving and swerving around boats, an aging tractor and a maze of white styrofoam boxes with practiced ease. Under the hot Wai’anae sun, dive tanks stand in haphazard formation like miniature gray soldiers with “Kaiohi” stamped uniformly across them. Kaiohi Tropical Fish owner and diver Rufus Kimura emerges from under his tented aquarium area and, for a second, it is easy to forget that this man is at the forefront of a very small and quite unheard of underwater revolution.
Approximately 8,000 minors in Hawaii are on probation, under supervision or in custody. But in Hawaii’s justice system, Surfrider Spirit Sessions is giving a choice to teens that adjudicated youth in the rest of the nation do not have: to go surfing.
As a community-based non-profit organization, Surfrider Spirit Sessions (SSS) teaches youth in Hawaii’s justice system life lessons and positive social skills through surfing and other ocean activities. Many of the kids initially express skepticism about surfing or even swimming. As the weeks go by and their surfing abilities improve, Spirit Sessions asks them, “If you can do this, what else can you achieve that you didn’t think was possible?”
