Aug. 19, 2010 -
PRLog -- More than 50 of skateboards will be on exhibit at the Red Bull Loft Space on Friday 20 August 9 pm to midnight to benefit Skateistan, a unique nonprofit organization that teaches girls and boys in Kabul, Afghanistan to skateboard. The exhibition follows an online auction with eBay from August 20-30, 2010, and will raise funds for the year-old organization. Contributors include renowned Islandic artist Olafur Eliasson, New York’s up and coming Ernesto Burgos, as well as NYC skateboard artist Shai Dahan.
Tickets can be purchased at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/
event/122922
Skateistan is Afghanistan’
s first co-educational skateboarding school. The school engages 300 internally-displaced youth in urban Afghanistan through skateboarding, and provides them with new opportunities in education, increased access to health services, and youth-led cultural activities. Students are aged 6 to 16 and come from a wide spectrum of Afghanistan’
s diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The curriculum integrates skateboarding instruction with classroom lessons in healthy habits, civic responsibility, information technology, the arts, and English and Dari languages. One of the poorest countries in the world, Afghanistan has few recreational or extracurricular education opportunities for children. Opportunities for girls are still especially limited- they are not allowed to ride bikes or fly kites. Skateistan aims not only to provide these children with much needed recreation, but also to equip young men and women with the skills to lead their communities toward social change and development. The Skateistan facility has two class rooms, provides access to Acer laptops with high-speed internet, photography and drawing classes, CPR training and environmental health lessons.
Skateistan started in a non-functional Soviet-era fountain back in 2007 and was officially established as a local Afghan non-profit in June 2009 by Australian skateboarder Oliver Percovich. His team worked with children across downtown Kabul and an orphanage on the city’s outskirts before they raised funds to construct a 5,287 sq. ft. indoor sports facility, Afghanistan’
s largest. The land was donated by the Afghan National Olympic Committee and the park opened in November of 2009.
Funds for running and developing Skateistan are raised from donations and from fundraisers held around the world organized by a network of volunteers. Fundraisers in Copenhagen have received several awards as outstanding socially oriented cultural events. The fundraiser at the Red Bull Loft is the first Skateistan fundraiser to be held in New York.
A documentary on Skateistan (Skateistan - The Movie) will be released at the Sundance film festival in 2011 detailing the construction of the school, achievements of its students, and what it’s like to grow up in twenty-first century in Afghanistan?
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Skateistan is a registered non-profit organization in the US as well as in Afghanistan, Australia, Germany, and Denmark. Please see: http://us.skateistan.org
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Skateistan is Afghanistan’
s—and the world’s—first co-educational skateboarding school. The school engages growing numbers of urban and internally-displaced youth in Afghanistan through skateboarding, and provides them with new opportunities in cross-cultural interaction, education, and personal empowerment. Our students come from all of Afghanistan’
s diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. They will not only develop skills in skateboarding and skateboarding instruction, but also healthy habits, civic responsibility, information technology, the arts, and languages. The students themselves decide what they want to learn—we connect them with teachers who will enable them to develop the skills that they consider important. Since Skateistan has been active in Kabul, we’ve seen that Afghan youth of all ethnicities, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds love to skateboard.
