"The ocean belongs to everyone." It's a simple statement but one Zandile Ndhlovu believes South Africans have forgotten. Widely known as the "Black Mermaid", South Africa's first black female certified freediving instructor and founder of the Black Mermaid Foundation, Ndhlovu is on a mission to reconnect children and historically excluded communities with the ocean and help them rediscover something she believes has always been theirs.

"The ocean is our inheritance in the same way these mountains, rivers and the soil are ours. It is part of our heritage so when I think of South Africa, a lot of people believe that the ocean and water are 'white people's things'."

But that couldn't be further from the truth, she says. "That's just framed around environment and access and perhaps to a certain level, privilege. But the truth is the ocean has always belonged to all of us.

"Our grandmothers used ocean water to heal and cleanse. I think we've forgotten that this is our home too.

"I often find it interesting that some people say: 'Zandie, I could never dive but I find such peace when I'm right by the ocean, just staring at it.' It's because we all know, we all remember, we're all calmed by it because it is home to all of us.

"We need to realise that limiting narratives only holds us back from the divine. That's criminal. We need to find ways to build bridges and remember.'

One memory, she says, has never left her.

It was a young girl from Langa taking part in one of the foundation's programmes. "She was tiny and terrified. She held my hand so tightly as we floated together, counting to three before looking underwater. Then to five. Then to 10.

"At the end of the count, she didn't lift her head. She just stayed there. When she finally looked up, she smiled and said: 'It's a starfish.'

"I think about her all the time. Her eyes reminded me of the fears we hold onto and the awe and curiosity waiting on the other side."

Ndhlovu believes the ocean offers vulnerable children something many struggle to find elsewhere: space to imagine lives bigger than the ones they know.

"The ocean is the one place where your awe is untamed. It allows you to begin building worlds you could never have imagined."

For Ndhlovu, conservation begins long before people learn about climate change or pollution.

"First you create connection. In that connection, people begin to care. One day, when they hear what's happening to our oceans, they say: 'No, we have to do something.'

"That connection becomes belonging, stewardship and protection. It plants a tiny seed that grows as the child grows."

Her message to women is as expansive as the ocean: "You need no one's permission to do what you're going to start. And remember that the ocean and her beauty are never tied to one identity. There are storms, there are sunny days, there is wildness but the ocean is never defined by only one of those things.

"In your womanhood, don't be afraid to embrace the calm, the wild, the awe and the big because those are the things that make a woman. We don't have to be tamed. We can be like the ocean completely untamed and still honoured and revered as women."