The good in skateboading, the good in individuals

I received an email about the Kitintale Skateboard Project project from an illustrator named Thea Jones who I’d worked with on Worn and on the CVP Workbook. Her email just said: “good things are being done by individuals”.

I’ve transcribed some of the writing from the Kitintale Skateboard Project site below. Because it was embedded in an image I couldn’t copy paste it, and the search engines can’t index it. Sometimes technology gets in the way, but maybe we can help a little bit. In a world of big disasters it may seem odd to embrace a small skate project, but I think about it this way: physical skill and challenging play opens and changes the shape of our brainways. Laughter and bravery and failure and improvement make connections between people that can warm hearts for lifetimes, and have wider expansive effects then you might ever imagine. Not to mention- skateboarding is a culture of independent thought and action and that’s a powerful thing to export. You are alone on the board, when it comes right down to it and every small success you have with it makes you feel like a super hero (I know from my one summer with my roomate’s longboard.) And the world needs more brave happy playful peaceful skillful super heros, or at least more kids with smiles like these guys’.

To read more information about the Kitintale Skateboard Project, check out their website. To donate or get involved in whatever way you can, contact buraianrai @ hotmail.com, the Vancouverite NGO volunteer/filmmaker who seems to have fallen in love with the ramp, and the people who built and ride it.

In April 2006 a Ugandan named Jack and a South African named Shael built Uganda’s first and only skateboard ramp.

The local youth in the vicinity of the ramp are loving it and skating everyday. Both boys are girls are trying their hands at skateboarding, they are enjoying the challenges and the rewarding feeling of progression. The boys are girls that skate the ramp come from various backgrounds, yet all of them experience the effects of poverty in one form or another. Skateboarding does the same thing for these youth that it does for skaters all over the world; it gives them a new window for fun, it gives them a physical challenge, and it gives them a mental release from whatever problems they might be facing.

Currently the downside of the project is the quality of the boards that they have and the amount of space they have to use them. They have the two boards that were initially donated to the project, unfortunately though, the boards are cheap imitations. The imitations are showing their wear very quickly, the bearings are slow, and the grip tape on the decks has worn away. In a few months they will be broken. Once the boards go, the mini ramp will become useless. It is not possible to get real skateboards from within Uganda.

Something are complicated, this thing is not. If you can, send a paypal donation to the email above, and/or repost this call for donations on sites where more folks might see it.
cheers all,
risa

note: this is cross posted on openjournalmontreal.com and on the indyish myspace blog