Sustainability is neither just environmental nor social. It covers a broad spectrum.
Nowhere has the full range and full potential of a sustainable project been evident than in Durban, South Africa, where the Sail Africa Youth Development Foundation have introduced a new generation to sailing while also easing inequality by creating new opportunities for girls and children from the townships.
Jackie de Fin, the foundation’s Managing Director, a former High School teacher and University lecturer specialising in Geography, knew Sail Africa itself had to be sustainable and doubled as a life skills initiative, ensuring positive sustainable outcomes around alleviating poverty, reducing inequality, developing education and creating environmental awareness in order to address just some of the issues facing youth growing up in the city.
Sail Africa won the Ethekwini Maritime Cluster Award for Empowering Youth in 2017 and won the World Sailing 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award in 2021. The foundation was profiled as part of Steering the Course, World Sailing’s global women’s sailing festival, in 2021. Each year, participation of ethnically diverse and female sailors has increased, as has the frequency of podium positions achieved
