Obibini is a new film from director Benoit Lalande. In it, he documents a Ghanaian surf club that is empowering young women to embrace surfing, challenging gender-based inequality, and changing cultural views about the ocean.
“For most of its history, Busua Beach was regarded as nothing more than a small fishing village. Few people in the area knew how to swim, and local women were never allowed in the ocean,” reads a chyron at the top of the trailer. That was until, in 2017, Justice Kwofie and his six brothers created the Obibini Surf Club, an organization aimed at teaching Ghanaian girls how to surf.
With a membership of over ten active female participants, the club has helped usher in a wave of change along Ghanaian beaches. “In the olden days, they said girls cannot surf, only boys,” says club member Vanessa Turkson, “but now I know that girls can also surf, because whatever men can do, a woman can do it better.”
