Twelve-year-old Shindy Octaviani was sound asleep when the 7.9 earthquake began to wreak havoc in her hometown of Cendana Banuaran, Padang, West Sumatra, late in the afternoon on Wednesday 30 September.
Fortunately Shindy, like all her Year Six classmates, was well trained in the event of an earthquake. She woke with a start and made a dash for the backdoor. Unfortunately the door was locked, and while she struggled to unlock it amongst the commotion, the house came crashing down on top of her.
Humanitarian organisation SurfAid International is proud to celebrate its 10th anniversary this year after starting with a small malaria program in one village in the Mentawai Islands, off Indonesia’s Sumatran coast, in 2000.
The scope of SurfAid’s work has increased from malaria prevention to now include water and sanitation, disaster preparedness, and community health programs.
In 2007, SurfAid was awarded the World Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (WANGO) Humanitarian Award, after being chosen from more than 49,000 not-for-profits worldwide.

The mission of SurfAid International, a non-profit humanitarian organization, is to improve the health, wellbeing, and self-reliance of people living in isolated communities connected to us through surfing.

+ March - May (USA)
- Swim 4 Humanity
+ March 14-21 (AUS)
- Noosa Festival of Surfing
+ May 1 (USA)
- Paddle 4 Humanity
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