The following text, written by Jihan—a thirteen-year-old who lives in Lombok, Indonesia, and is learning to swim and surf—has been translated from Indonesian, compiled, and edited for clarity.

Jihan

Not many of my friends spend time in the ocean. If they do, they prefer to enjoy it from the shore rather than swimming or surfing, because most of them don’t know how to swim. They know that swimming and surfing are difficult sports that take a long time to learn. We are also taught at a young age that the place is mystical, the sea is scary, and there are many monster fish that look for small children as sacrificial offerings.

It will be crucial to learn how to swim early to prepare for floods and tsunamis. I believe the biggest barriers limiting more girls from swimming and getting in the ocean is limited education and the cost of lessons. There is also a belief in many families that women don’t need to be active because their future husband will support them. 

My story is different because my family supports me. They believe that success comes from perseverance and hard work, including in sports such as swimming. Other parents hold back because they think swimming is very difficult, requires a long process, and is expensive. I wish that more of my friend’s families would support them to get in the water.

My favorite part about surfing is being able to control my surfboard, steering it simply by looking in the direction I want to go. It has also taught me patience, courage, and how to laugh even when I fall over. My favorite part about swimming is the fact that it forces me to rely on my endurance, not only strength. 

I feel very grateful for my mother, father, and extended family, who continue to support me.  My dream is to become an international swimmer and also to teach swimming and surfing techniques, especially to the women of Lombok who live along the coast. 

Maddy

I met Jihan through OceanFolx, my nonprofit teaching Indonesian women how to swim and surf. At just thirteen years old, Jihan is well aware of climate change’s impact on her community and the many barriers facing her as a young woman wanting to learn how to swim and surf. However, she remains determined to break this pattern and put herself out there in the surf lineup among the tourists and local men. She wants to earn her place in the waves that surround her home, instead of just being another onlooker from the shore.

I founded OceanFolx in 2023 after spending many years traveling between Australia, Canada—where I’m from—and Indonesia. After these experiences, I wanted to give back to the community. The idea for OceanFolx came after one of the first times I paddled out into the waves in Lombok to surf. I noticed the lineup was alive with accents and faces from around the world: women from Spain, Italy, and Australia; men from Germany, Brazil, and New Zealand. I saw Indonesian men too, but it was glaringly obvious what was missing: Indonesian women. 

So I asked an Indonesian friend of mine, Misel, if she wanted to learn how to surf. She shared that she would but that she didn’t even know how to swim. Many women are busy at home, she explained, and swimming isn’t commonly taught in Indonesia because it doesn’t generate income and is seen as something for tourist women, who have more time on their hands. We are busy caring for our families and our children or going to work, she told me, so not many people can learn to swim.

Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world, with over 17,500 islands surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and various Southeast Asian seas. Despite the ocean being inextricably intertwined with much of daily life, from transport to harvest, very few Indonesian women can swim.

Many Indonesian women do not have the time for themselves to swim or surf. Often, their mornings consist of helping their children get ready for school, feeding their family, and keeping their households clean and orderly, all before many also head off to work. Taking even an hour or two a week to learn a new skill requires careful planning and coordination. To indulge in a skill that does not earn their family money, such as swimming, is a luxury that many local women cannot afford.

Many of the women I work with through OceanFolx say they never learned how to swim simply because no one ever taught them. Although swimming is sometimes taught in schools, the facilities and curriculum are not standardized or prioritized as a major source of funding or attention, since swimming is not seen as profitable or of economic importance. At the same time, for safety reasons, women are often taught from birth to fear the ocean.

Drowning is the third leading cause of unintentional injury death worldwide, accounting for  about 300,000 deaths each year. About 30 percent of these deaths occur in the Western Pacific, a region that includes Indonesia. Accurate data on drowning is sparse, and even more so within Indonesia, where drowning deaths might be underreported given the lack of a national drowning data collection system. 

But more general data on swimming ability is available, with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reporting that, in 2019, only around half of people over fifteen in Indonesia could swim without assistance. In contrast, countries like Sweden had near universal swimming competence. 

The OECD report also notes that globally, inequalities in income and education create barriers to who has access to lessons and pool facilities, a challenge similarly cited by many locals in Lombok. In virtually all the countries it surveyed, the report also found that women are much less likely than men across education and age groups to be able to swim without assistance.

Locals also become more vulnerable to drowning with development-driven climate change. With more and more tourists visiting Lombok as an alternative to the overrun and heavily populated Bali, development is quickly picking up pace in the region. Many locals have been routinely evicted out of their homes, and many claim they have yet to receive compensation. 

While increased tourism brings varied benefits to local communities, the associated growth in development and infrastructure has frequently been linked to worsening flooding in the area. As hillsides are stripped of their natural flora through logging and development, their ability to absorb rain is reduced. Just this year, severe floods across Lombok have forced residents out of their homes. In late 2025, flooding in Sumatra caused hundreds of deaths and displaced a million people in an event that climate scientists attributed to increased precipitation intensity driven by human-induced climate change.

At a time when tourism in Lombok is growing each day, understanding the nuanced dynamics of inequality in ocean access and safety is more urgent than ever. As tourists visiting Lombok, it can be easy to see the ocean as a surfing playground. However, for families like Jihan’s, the same ocean can represent something new: a place of opportunity and belonging.