Sitting next to the likes of Eva Longoria, Padma Lakshmi and Lily Kwong, Zandile Ndhlovu has joined a “Power List” of women in travel!
Johannesburg, South Africa (09 March 2023) – A young South African freediver has just been featured in a “power list” of women in travel.
Condé Nast Traveler, a global luxury and lifestyle travel magazine, compiled a list celebrating International Women’s Day. Sitting next to the likes of Eva Longoria, Padma Lakshmi and Lily Kwong, Zandile Ndhlovu’s story will now be shared with the world.
Ndhlovu is a Freediving Instructor and the founder of The Black Mermaid Foundation, an organization seeking to create diverse representation in the ocean arena. Ndhlovu’s work centres around creating first encounters that expose the youth to the ocean. With a strategic approach combined with an outside-the-box perspective, Black Mermaid helps people break through barriers and challenges, overcome doubts and take a large stride towards achieving their goals.
As an ocean conservationist, diversity and inclusion specialist, and avid speaker and storyteller, she uses these skills to advocate for diversely represented and inclusive oceans while working to reshape incomplete narratives.
“Black Mermaid is where I found solace in this journey; I’m a Freediving Instructor based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Being the first Black African Instructor in South Africa, I’m determined to share my passion for the ocean with the world and explore how our deepest beliefs about the deep ocean can coexist with Freediving and perhaps even bring us closer to the knowledge of self.
I’m an advocate of wonder, exploration and awe – beginning with self.
I’ve always dreamt of making a positive impact in the lives of others, and am made happiest when inspiring, motivating and challenging people from all different backgrounds by simply being.”
Ndhlovu is a change agent, passionate about human potential being the critical currency that creates the worlds we want to live in, while focusing on the collective ability to bring change.
Here’s what the Condé Nast Traveller article had to say about Ndhlovu.
“When I found the ocean, it felt like finding home,” remembers Zandile Ndhlovu. “Being someone who’s never really fit in, to be able to find a place where you didn’t have to pretend to be anything else but yourself was just so incredibly empowering.”
Ever since that seminal first dive in Bali in 2016, Ndhlovu, South Africa’s first Black woman freediving instructor, has been on a mission to make sure others get to experience that same sense of wonder – no small feat when you consider that just 15 per cent of South Africans can swim, with a notable racial divide.
“When you think of ocean spaces, Black communities often feel like that’s a white space. I knew I wanted to change the narrative.”
With her Black Mermaid Foundation, Ndhlovu – the very image of a mermaid herself, with her signature blue mane and daily visits to the Atlantic Ocean – does this through both education and access. She takes young children from townships, many of whom have never been underwater before, on snorkelling excursions and teaches them about plastic pollution, overfishing, marine habitats, and climate policy in conservation.
She’s also creating “hubs of hope” across South Africa and, eventually, the continent. The concept has created physically safe gathering spaces for children, starting with one in Cape Town’s Langa township.
“Many of the kids live under many hard conditions – gender-based violence, drugs, poverty,” she says. “What would it mean to have a hub of hope that is rooted in the ocean but lives in the community?”
Ndhlovu is passionate about advocating for more representation, both in the water and in the conversation.
“As you enable communities to believe that the oceans belong to them too, they become new custodians and stakeholders and voices that protect these oceans.”
And this all starts with showing children the wonder beneath the waves, inspiring a generation to explore bravely and freely.
“Sometimes we can’t dream things we don’t see.”
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