In southern Turkey, a surf school helps earthquake survivors process trauma and loss

In the dark blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, about a dozen kids perch on their boards just off the coast of Samandağ, in Turkey’s Hatay province. 

Their coach, Hayder Esmer, stands on the shore with a bullhorn, shouting instructions.

“This is your wave, Huseyin,” he yells. “Push, push!”  

As a wave crests above them, the students paddle furiously and push themselves up to a standing position. Balancing on the board, they take the wave as far as they can before slowing down, and jumping back into the sea. The waves aren’t much higher than a couple feet — a good size for beginners.

This seaside community was devastated by earthquakes in Turkey just a year and a half ago. But this summer, a nonprofit has created a unique approach to helping kids process their trauma: teaching them how to surf.

“It’s a great thing,” 15-year-old Samir Köse said. “Sometimes, you miss a wave — you get frustrated — but it’s fun, it’s exciting.” 

Many kids in Samandağ, Köse said, grew up afraid of the water. Even though they live right next to it. Mothers often warn their children to stay away, fearing the waves and the riptides. Many can’t swim, and there are occasional cases of drowning.

But disasters have a way of challenging foundational beliefs.  

The town of Samandağ sits on the southern coast of Hatay.

On Feb. 6, 2023, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook the entire region. It was followed by a 7.6 magnitude tremor later the same day. At least 53,537 people died in Turkey, according to government figures, and another 5,900 to 9,000 people died in Syria. Nearly half of all deaths recorded in the disaster were in Hatay.

“These kids lost everything — their friends, their schools, their neighborhoods,” said Derya Gümüş Türkoğlu, a schoolteacher from the nearby city of Antakya, who co-founded the Hatay Surf Center. 

Many lost their homes — and have spent the past 18 months living in tents and converted shipping containers. 

Getting the kids on the water for a surfing lesson is about more than just a sport, Türkoğlu explained. 

“To go over the waves, to succeed at something — life is like this,” Turkoglu said. “Yes, we fall, but we know how to get up. It gives the kids the feeling that they’re strong, and it makes them stronger.”

The Hatay Surf Center is the brainchild of professional surfer Deniz Toprak who runs surfing schools in Sri Lanka and Turkey’s northern Black Sea Coast. Two months after the earthquakes, he came to Hatay to volunteer for a nonprofit setting up access to clean water. Being nature lovers, he said, he and other volunteerschecked the surf forecast.

“There was a swell. We woke up in the early morning, and we checked the beach — it was all empty, no one was around. But there were waves,” Toprak said. 

Amid so much destruction, nature remained a constant.

“I was just so stoked,” Toprak said. “Like you guys have so many good waves, this is an amazing beach, it’s like Rio! And people were like, what is this guy talking about, come on Deniz.”

Toprak put out a call on social media for local teens to surf with him — and five showed up.

“I said I’m going in at 5 a.m. They were ready at 4:30,” Toprak recalled. “There was so much excitement, and I saw how it changed their whole narrative.”  

One of the surfers was 18-year-old Haydar Esmer who had never been on a board before.

“It’s a tremendous thing — I felt like I was flying,” Esmer said.

For the first year, Toprak covered the expenses for Esmer and Akıl Köse to train for three months on the Black Sea. Both of them won local competitions for their age bracket.

“I was very afraid of the sea at first. I didn’t know how to swim,” Köse said. “Now, I can’t get out of the sea. I have to catch a good wave every day.” 

Esmer, Köse and Toprak, along with schoolteacher Turkoğlu, are now working together to run the Hatay Surf Center. With a large shedfull of donated surfboards and wetsuits, and volunteers flown in from South Africa, they’re prepared to teach up to 1,000 kids how to surf this summer.

Toprak hopes it’s a chance to create a surfing economy here in Hatay.

“When something is destroyed, you have the opportunity to rebuild.”

Toprak, standing on the beach, talked about a younger student who went into the water with her trainer.

“When she started, she was terrified of the water,” Toprak recalled. 

But she was determined to surf. Every day, he said, he asks her if she’s sure she wants to go out again.

Every day, she says yes.

“To manage the trauma,” Toprak said, “you need a way to reconnect with life.”