Surf-Aid provides health care for local people

Ben Gordon is the ultimate beach boy. He has shining bright eyes, an always smiling, tanned face, a muscular build and a beaded necklace hanging around his neck.

But this sunny Australian boy is much more than just an ordinary surfer. Even though he lives on the Mentawai Islands -- one of the most desired destinations for surfers -- Gordon is not into tourism as most of his compatriots there. On the contrary, he works as a volunteer doctor for Surf-Aid, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to providing medical services to the indigenous people of Siberut, the most populated island in Mentawai, together with his wife Amanda.

"We had not been too interested in doing aid work before learning about this place and the Surf-Aid program," Gordon said. "It was this special mix, an excellent opportunity to combine a lot of different things: Traveling, knowing a new culture, learning the Indonesian language and, of course, surfing. That we might do quite a few people something good in the end was like the cream on the cake."

To combine surfing and having fun with the need for medical and logistics support for the locals is actually how the Surf- Aid's initiator, New Zealander Dave Jenkins, got the idea to start the organization. Jenkins is also a doctor and an enthusiastic surfer. He came to the Mentawais for the first time as a tourist in 1999. While visiting on Siberut he was shocked by the alarming health situation of the indigenous people.

According to data from UNESCO, the childhood mortality rate is 32 percent, and almost all death cases were because of preventable and treatable diseases, such as diarrhea, measles and tetanus. About half the population carries the malaria parasite.

The only doctor at the only public health center (Puskesmas) on the island was totally overtaxed with being responsible for so many patients in such a difficult area.

Jenkins did his first spontaneous treatment during his holidays. A year later he left his permanent work in Singapore to build up Surf-Aid International, based in Padang. Last April, Surf-Aid opened its first base on Siberut with the help of the Gordons, who are now cooperating with the local Puskesmas. The original idea was to prove that surfers are not only a loud crowd of indifferent people who don't care about anything else than having fun. Surf-Aid wants to represent a surfer community, which compensates for what it has received. The aim is to empower the locals in a way that they can provide for themselves in the end.

"The social changes by surfing are huge and unpredictable. So I feel that we have to give something back to the locals in remote surfing areas," Jenkins said.

Looking at the huge surf charter boats leaving every week from Padang to the popular spots around the Mentawai Islands, there should be no lack of money. Renting a boat for one day costs between US$80 and $400.

"These people come from everywhere to get the best surf of the world. They don't even ask how much it costs," he said.

Even though Surf-Aid is now 93 percent financed through funding and supported by Lonely Planet and almost all important surf companies around Padang, there is still a long way to go. Most of the surf tourists hardly ever step on the islands and are not interested in the problems they might have caused.

"Ninety percent of the tourists who come here just want to have fun. By giving a donation to Surf-Aid they relieve their conscience," Gideon Malherbe, a South African owner of a charter boat, said. "But I think the most important thing for the organization is to get funding without asking from sponsors."

Without a bigger and more regular sponsorship in the future, Surf-Aid will not be able to fulfill its ambitious plans: immunization programs for children under one year old and pregnant mothers and training in malaria treatment for local nurses.

But Jenkins is confident that he will manage to fill the lack of financing before the end of this year. His latest effort is a cooperation with Care Australia.

The Gordons, who are working without any salary, cannot afford to stay for a long time without this support. The open-minded couple, however, is probably the best thing that could happen to the organization at this early stage. He is a committed doctor, and she a marketing expert who speaks Indonesian. Only with the arrival of both of them did the locals start to understand and accept the Surf-Aid program, which before seemed to be just one of the many theoretical, but never realized concepts of foreign organizations dropping by on the Mentawais.

In a short time, Gordon, better known as dokter Ben, has built up a great reputation. People come all the way from the forest to get treatment for gastritis. Some even believe he has a magical touch.

"Sometimes people simulate some aches, just to see what we will do," Amanda Gordon said.

Although the indigenous people still follow animist traditions and medicine men's healing methods, they are very curious to know more about medicine from the Westerners who look so much younger than themselves.

It's a great chance also for the Australian doctor to learn a lot about traditional medicine. "If you don't know the indigenous language and the story of the patient, you have to rely on something in between body language and instinct. So I learned here to trust my feelings, a very liberating experience for me."

More information: www.surfaidinternational.org

-- Christina Schott