Marine Dream Hub

Coastal hub brings together marginalised communities to make the most of their marine environment and boost their local economy.

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Tassy Swallow is a professional surfer and the founder of a surf school in St Ives. In 2018, she worked with the New Economics Foundation to turn her school into a Marine Dream Hub, one of three coastal hubs bringing together marginalised communities to make the most of their marine environment and boost their local economy.

Swallow first started coaching girls in Cornwall to fund her professional surfing career. She has represented Great Britain at under-18 level in five successive World Junior Surfing Games but she noticed that back in St Ives, there were fewer opportunities for people like her.

She found that teaching opened up another side to the sport. Through surfing, she helped girls learn to have a healthier relationship with their bodies and better self-confidence, both in and out of the water.

The Marine Dream Hub is based in a heritage building on a cliff by the beach that Swallow has crowdfunded to renovate. It will act as a club house for Tassy’s Surf Ratz, a group for girls aged 6 – 16 which aims to improve their self-worth by teaching them about surfing. It will also be an events hub in St Ives for the marine scene.

“It’s an arty town, it’s positive but the whole marine side of the town goes underlooked,” Swallow told Far Nearer. ​“My hope is to run workshops to teach people about the sea, especially kids who don’t know much about the marine environment.”

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