the WAVE PROJECT
Ameliorate: PHOTOGRAPHS AND WORDS BY JADE JACKSON
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“I’ve seen a massive improvement in my son, I feel like I have my child back”
The wave project is a ‘not for profit’ company that helps young people towards feeling more positive and to overcome challenges through surfing. The organisation had caught my attention through social media before I started living in Cornwall, and so getting to photographing them became a great oppertunity for me to experiance first hand exactly what they do. As soon as the children began to arrive at St Ives Surf School for their final session in the surfing course, I could tell just how much the organisation was benefitting them. They were all very eager to get in the water for the session to get underway. Throughout the shoot I couldn’t help but notice how happy the session was making them, and how much of a strong relationship they had built with the instructors who volunteer their personal time to help out. Despite what it had initially seemed to me, it is not just the children who have benefitted from the work and time of the Wave Project and their instructors. I shot most of the photographs standing on the shore with a couple of the childrens parents, spending a lot of time talking to one childs parent in particular, who told me; “I’ve seen a massive improvement in my son, I feel like I have my child back”. The overall experiance I had during my day with the Wave Project was a very positive one and I came away from it knowing that the organisation really was making an important difference to peoples lives.
1) Wave Project instructors gather the clients together before the sessions begin. 2) Close bonds develop between the Wave Project and their clients, as demonstrated here.
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