Defying all the odds. That’s exactly what the documentary Surfing Through The Odds shows, which has just been made available on Betclic’s YouTube and Shutterstock’s specially created page as part of a project featuring SOMA Surf – an NGO based in São Tomé and Príncipe – which tells the story of young girls fighting for female empowerment through surfing.
In the center of the globe, we find the second smallest country in Africa: São Tomé and Príncipe is a natural paradise, but it is also a place where 67% of the population lives below the poverty line and only 34% women reach upper secondary schools. In this context, SOMA Surf was born, founded in 2020, who is now the protagonist of a global project resulting from an unprecedented partnership between Betclic and Shutterstock Studios – which aims to raise awareness of gender and race inequality in surfing.
The representation of black women surfing was non-existent in image banks and SOMA Surf needed visibility to continue with the project. Betclic and Shutterstock Studios travelled to São Tomé to create the documentary Surfing Through The Odds and photograph these young African women, who are the first black female surfers to be featured in an images/videos collection.
“In partnership with SOMA Surf and Betclic, we have identified a gap in the content market, and actively worked to solve that problem in what has been an incredibly rich and rewarding experience for everyone involved. We are excited for the world to take a look at the final images and documentary and be transported to the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, where hundreds of young women are embarking on life-changing experiences thanks to SOMA’s initiatives” said Adam Barnett, Senior Director of Production for Shutterstock Studios, EMEA and APAC.
This collection is available on the Shutterstock website and the profits from the images/videos go directly to SOMA Surf for life. In this way, the project takes advantage of the best resources and the visibility of each partner to contribute to effective change in racial and gender inequality in the surfing community and to the empowerment of women in São Tomé.
