Surfing For Change

I have a strong belief that people are more powerful than they think they are.

Today we live in a global community and our daily decisions impact people in our town and places as far away as Africa. I am a professional surfer and I wanted to use my unique position to help people recognize and engage their power to create meaningful social and environmental change.

Five years ago I set out to make an online video series that would inspire surfers to make simple shifts in their daily decisions that would, in turn, have a positive systemic impact on people, their local economies, and the environment.

Fast forward five years and countless hours of researching, traveling, surfing, public speaking, collaborating, learning, and interviewing and here we are with Surfing For Change.

The first movie in the series, Claim Your Change, detailed how money kept in multinational banks is used to finance destructive projects all over the world. One such project, a proposed coal-fired plant in Constitucion, Chile, home of a world-class surf spot and fishing village, is the subject of the movie. This video inspired people to move over 345 million dollars of lending power out of centralized banks into local banks and credit unions, and has reached people throughout North America, South America, Africa and much of Europe.

Over the past five years I have developed the series while earning my BS in Green Business from my uber-flexible online college, Gaia University.

Now that I have graduated my intention is for Surfing For Change to become a mixed drink of Story Of Stuff, Vice TV Travel, with a splash of Jon Stewart. Eventually, it is my intention for the viewership to be on the same level as these shows as well.

Surfing For Change is a vehicle for providing critical information to people on a global level, which I believe we need now more than ever.

Sincerely,

Kyle Thiermann

Media Received

- Surfer Magazine Brower Award

- Tracks Surf Australia

- Huffington Post

- Outside Magazine

- Discovery Channel

Awards Received

- Brower Award

- Peter Benchley Blue Vision Award

- Surfrider Environmental Award

Our Sponsors

- Patagonia

- Clif Bar

- Sector 9

Exciting Times!