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For Keiran Douglas, learning to surf was the first step towards connecting with his ancestral language and culture. The 15-year-old from Djiringanj country on the NSW far south coast couldn't stand up on the board when he first joined the Surfing with the Mob program. "Now I can go across the waves pretty good," he said. "It's something I wouldn't give up". He has also begun a journey that he hopes will lead to a career in teaching Indigenous languages when he leaves school. Surfing with the Mob began in 2022 when Djiringanj, Ngarigo and Jerrinja man Robbie Townsend took up the role of Community Connector with the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council. One of six positions across NSW, the role is focused on supporting Indigenous teenagers through their final years of high school as part of the Closing the Gap initiative. For Mr Townsend, a lifelong surfer, getting out in the waves was a natural way to help the teenagers stay physically, mentally and culturally strong. "The young ones that come are around 14-17, and it's a really hard age, there's a lot going on for them," he said. After three successful years, the program is introducing a stronger emphasis on language and culture through the Yangala Bugan (Sing on Country) program. "There is a strong need in our community to not only learn our language but to bring it back, and our young people feel a massive responsibility," said Yangala Bugan founder Tamika Townsend. Bringing back language, word by word Djiringanj and Ngarigo educator Marcus Mundy worked with elder Aunty Ellen Mundy to create teaching resources, drawing from word lists recorded by anthropologists and linguists dating back to the 1840s. "It was our ancestors gave that information, that history and language to the anthropologists and linguists," Ms Mundy said. Coming from an oral culture, she said the written records could never capture the full richness of her people's language and stories. "Our language and our history was never written down," she said. "It's been passed down through ceremony, through song, dance, engravings on trees, rock art, body paint," she said. From surf to song For Yangala Bugan founder Emma Stewart, song has been an important tool to share and retain language. "For our people, song is like the veins in the body that connect everything together," she said. It was a natural progression for the young surfers to use the words they are learning to write and record a rap song, Saltwater Home. "The song sums up Surfing with the Mob, which is us being connected to saltwater, being connected to country, but also doing it together, as a mob," said 16-year-old Raiyn Campbell. Culture the "missing piece" As a child, Raiyn knew she was Aboriginal, but was not exposed to her culture until she lived with her father when she was 10 years old. "I knew I was different to other kids, but then I felt kind of in-between, 'cause I didn't know anything about my culture, and that made me for some reason feel ashamed," she said. A layer of healing Ms Stewart believes that helping the teenagers through a fundamental transition of their lives creates "a layer of healing" for every generation. "They're at that turning point where they're trying to figure out who they want to be," she said. "When they practice culture and engage in language, their spirit wakes up, and you can see the strength and the confidence in them grow. And that's what we want."
