The Edava Surf Club is a new youth and community engagement surfing initiative launched in 2012. Edava is a small fishing village located just beyond the small tropical tourist destination of Varkala in the Indian state of Kerala. The surf club was founded by the boutique surf and yoga retreat, Soul & Surf. A UK couple opened Soul & Surf for its first season in Varkala in 2011 and their small hotel rapidly gained popularity through word of mouth in the UK surf scene and through exotic vacation getaway write-ups online on travel to India. 

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The idea behind the Edava Surf Club was to engage with the local children on a beach where Soul & Surf frequently brought guests for morning surf lessons and guides. Edava is a bustling fishing village with boats coming and going through a beautiful left peeling wave just off the rocky point. The local children would watch surfers come and go and sometimes swim out into the lineup to body surf next to the Soul & Surf guests. The effort to start Sunday afternoon surf lessons with the kids came from a discussion on sustainable tourism. The surf instructors at Soul & Surf came together to launch a new initiative to engage the local kids on the beach and the club developed quickly to include a beach cleanup and ocean safety and lifesaving protocols.

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The Edava Surf Club started off with a handful of kids who knew one another from school and through a football team. The children had never touched a surfboard before but only after two lessons were knee paddling and catching waves from the outside with the instructors. Now, a solid group of 10 to 15 both Muslim and Christian youths from Edava surf together every Sunday afternoon. The surf instructors learn the local language (Malayalam) and a bit about fishing from the kids in exchange.