After achieving success on the national and international stage, Taiwanese surfer Niu Chen-lin has been selflessly giving back to the community while volunteering to promote the sport that she loves.
Niu, or “Bay Bay” as nicknamed by her grandfather, has won a number of surfing competitions at home and abroad, including the top spot in the women’s longboard event at the 2006 Yilan International Surfing Competition and the 2008 Kenting International Surfing Competition, and most recently finishing in second place at the Madill Toyota Senior Women’s event held in Noosa, Australia, last month.
In 2008, after honing her surfing skills for a couple of years in Kenting, southern Taiwan, where she made ends meet by working part-time at a surf shop, Niu decided to pack up and move to Taitung County.
For the last three years in the eastern county’s Donghe Township, Niu has been teaching aboriginal youth in the nearby Amis community how to surf free of charge. She has also helped raise funds to buy secondhand surfboards for the young enthusiasts.
In addition, Niu covers the upkeep costs for their surfboards, only asking in return that the youngsters help clean up in their community and occasionally work part-time in the surf shop that she has opened there.
Besides giving youngsters the opportunity to engage in a constructive activity and instilling in them the virtuous qualities of hard work and self-discipline, Niu is helping spread the popularity of a sport in which she is widely considered to be a pioneer in Taiwan.
Her dream is to eventually open a surfing school so she and the kids can “continue to challenges ourselves.” (SB)