Talma helping uplift youth

Brian “deAction” Talma is using beach sports to help rehabilitate young men.

Coming out of the initiative, Josh Clarke has captured the Beach Culture World Tour Instructor Award for kitesurfing.

“Our goal is to get fellas off the block and to get them employed. They don’t have to always work for me, but I want them to use my shop as a stepping stone to go further within the society or the broader world,” said Talma at a Press conference at the Action Shop yesterday.

“The guys who painted the shop, the gardener, the majority of people who work on the shop are from Silver Sands. That is called organic tourism – including people; that is the true meaning of beach culture.”

Talma revealed that Clarke was among a number of wayward youngsters around the Silver Sands area, but he made something positive out of a negative situation.

“He would say he was one of the major people giving trouble on the beach. He’s a young fella. I was young too. They were all having fun and trying to make some money on the beach, but it was really agitating a lot of the tourists and I took my initiative to solve that problem. I taught him to kitesurf. He was not the only one. There were a lot of fellas that came and tried.

“Josh now works for me. He is my main instructor. He shows up to work every day. He goes and does the lessons and he knows how to rescue people because that is what he did before he came to me,” said Talma.

The veteran surfer said he did not expect the boys to all become professional athletes but if a few did he would be pleased. (RG)