Our fascination with the prospect of surfing in Gaza began well before Explore Corps was even created.  When Explore Corps Chairman of the Board Norman Olsen first went into Gaza in the summer of 1991, he returned with tales of beautiful beaches and good surf.  For years, a small group of us have been discussing the prospect of launching a youth-oriented surfing program in Gaza and in January of 2008, we teamed up with the surfers of Gaza and did just that.  We called it The Gaza Surf Club.

The goals of Explore Corps in creating the Surf Club are to:

        -  Connect the Gaza surfers to the international surfing community through

            the development of online tools and networking, print articles, photo/video

            and documentary footage, and securing media coverage of their unique

            story,

        -  Create custom-made educational and recreational multi-media programming

            for Gaza surfers including native-language instructional videos, translations of

            surf movies and documentaries, and original online content,

        -  Provide a forum, both online and with a physical facility, for workshops, community events    

            and education-based services,

        -  Facilitate the development of surf industry infrastructure, such as surfboard

            repair facilities, to meet the needs of the Gaza surfers,

        -  Provide a mechanism for the fair and equal distribution of donated goods

            and facilitate the import of those goods into Gaza,

        -  Promote local and regional surf exploration and discovery,

        -  Promoting ecological awareness and sustainable coastal development

            and recreation,

        -  Provide administrative protection for surfers and their assets,

The Gaza Surf Club is not, and does not claim to be, a national club or association of the Palestinian Authority and does not represent surfers in Palestine as a whole.  The Gaza Surf Club is run as an Explore Corps project, in full cooperation with the featured surfers, for their benefit.

The development of the Surf Club has followed a successful, though difficult, progression since its founding in 2008, and today the Gaza Surf Club continues to operate as an Explore Corps project.

In August of 2010, Explore Corps successfully negotiated the delivery of 24 surfboards to the surfers of Gaza as part of the Gaza Surf Relief project.  Today, each surfer in Gaza has their own surfboard and the future of the Surf Club is looking very bright.  Find out more about the surfboard delivery here.

Visit The Gaza Surf Club online, where you can meet the surfers, check out photos and video from Gaza, see the donations and view custom content, created by Explore Corps especially for The Gaza Surf Club.

The website is located at www.gazasurfclub.com

The Gaza Surf Club is on Facebook here. 

For updates on this project, check out our Reports From The Field section.

To support this project, click here.