It might surprise you that champion surfer and Olympic bronze medallist Owen Wright has always wanted to grow his own veggie patch.

He’s had a crack at it at his old place in Berry. A more successful plot at his dad’s. Recently, he’s been giving it a go at home in Byron. He may have mastered some of the world’s best waves, but Owen admits he’s still chasing peak green-thumb status.

“It’s a lot of work.”

On the Indonesian island of Rote, however, he met someone who has already figured it out. And like Owen, Mama Margarita Ha is a champion.

While Owen earned his title in the ocean, Margarita earned hers on land.

Known as a Champion in her village, Margarita helps families learn how to grow their own food and improve their nutrition. Her backyard is a living example of what’s possible. Rows of vegetables spill across the dry landscape, producing enough food to feed her family year-round.

Eggplant, Chinese cabbage, spinach and cucumber are just some of the delights sprouting from the soil. Chickens and a rooster have grown into their own little family there too.

For the past three years, she hasn’t bought vegetables. She even shares her excess produce with neighbours.

Standing among the garden beds, Owen looked impressed. For a man still trying to perfect his own patch back home, this was the dream.

So how on earth did these two champions come to meet in this big garden on the little island of Rote?

For decades, surfers have travelled to Indonesia in search of long reef breaks and uncrowded line-ups. While Bali’s breaks are now packed and many famous surf destinations have succumbed to the rat race, Rote still feels a little removed from the rush.

But beyond the reef and resorts lies a very different side of the island, one that most surfers never see.

Until now.

This June, international development organisation SurfAid invited a motley crew of board members, supporters and ambassadors like myself and Owen into villages across Rote to meet the people behind the company’s work and the projects in progress.

For Owen, the trip offered a perspective he hadn’t experienced before.

Like many surfers, Owen had long been familiar with SurfAid’s work from afar. As an ambassador for the organisation’s signature Make A Wave challenge, he has surfed every day for 30 days each September while raising funds alongside his son and his son’s friends. Owen’s long-time sponsor, Rip Curl, has also been the challenge’s primary partner since 2023 and a key supporter of SurfAid’s work over the past four years.

“My son and his buddies finished the challenge and wanted to keep going.”

Yet for all 30 surfs, and the extra sessions the kids squeezed in, the reality of what they were raising funds for still felt far away.

“You hear about the work,” he said. “But coming here and actually seeing it is completely different.”

Owen has visited plenty of surf destinations around the world, but this was his first trip to Rote. As the bus took us away from the waves and further into the lush landscape of the island, Owen talked to me about how Rote feels like Bali 20 years ago. A remote paradise not tarnished by westernised culture and that still has its own heart.

“This is definitely up there in terms of how isolated it feels.”

After decades of travelling through Indonesia, Owen has watched destinations like Bali completely transform into something else.

“We just kind of take over,” Owen said.

That was something SurfAid and its local affiliate ARUNGI, has been clear not to do in the One Rote Program.

One Rote is a full circle program that combines nutrition, water access and climate change adaptation where community members help decide where projects happen and local committees are established before work begins. Villagers take responsibility for maintaining infrastructure and sharing knowledge. It’s a hand up, not a hand out.

SurfAid CEO Anna Bowden explained, “The only way things keep going is if they own it. It’s why ‘locally led’ development is at the core of SurfAid’s work.”

It’s an approach that appears to be working.

Over two days, we visited water systems, nutrition gardens and community projects that are helping families improve access to food and clean water.

At first glance it seems simple enough. Large black water tanks sit high on bright blue structures, a common design feature throughout the facilities SurfAid and ARUNGI have contributed. This water filters through the village into taps and gardens, that, quite literally, change the course of daily life for the community.

Before this program, families often had to travel significant distances to access fresh food and water. Women, who traditionally carried responsibility for collecting water from wells, are now saving hours each day just by the convenience of having a water tap nearby. Families can spend more time together at home, which means more capacity to invest in health and nutrition. Which is where Mama Margarita’s garden comes in.

Margarita’s garden has become a model for others. Rote locals visit to learn what she’s doing. They take ideas home. They start gardens of their own.

It’s why SurfAid refers to people like Margarita as Champions.

Not because they’re the loudest voices in the community, but because they’re helping create change that lasts long after a project is completed.

Now there’s nutrition gardens sprouting up everywhere, including a maternal and child healthcare centre where local mothers get their baby measured and weighed by volunteer midwives. Mothers and volunteers can take from the garden out back to feed their family.

In a destination famous for world-class waves, it is a reminder that some of the most impressive things happening on these remote islands have nothing to do with surfing at all.

So how do we enjoy these places while ensuring the people who call them home benefit too?

There are no easy answers. But standing in Mama Margarita’s garden, those questions felt a little less grey and more bright and colourful like the vegetables she grows.

The garden wasn’t built for tourists. It wasn’t built for surfers. It existed because a family wanted to grow food, feed themselves and support their neighbours.

Now that’s something Owen and us all can aspire to.

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If you would like to support champions like Mama Margarita in Rote, you can join Owen Wright and sign up to SurfAid’s Make A Wave challenge and start fundraising today. Since the 30-day surf challenge began in 2021, SurfAid has raised over $3.6 million for remote communities connected to us through surfing.