Skateistan "Afghanistan’s First Skateboard School," was started by Oliver “Ollie” Percovich and I have to say this guy is doing an amazing thing with the Afghanistan youth. Read the interview and see how he is changing lives with only a board and four wheels and nothing more.
"Oliver Percovich has spent the last 5 years in Kabul, Afghanistan. What started as an adventure in a war torn country known for conflict, religious extremism, poverty, and the 2001 U.S. invasion to expel the Taliban; turned into a radical approach to the way aid is delivered to youth, especially young girls.
Skateistan “Afghanistan’s First Skateboard School,” not only gives kids a positive experience through physical activity on the skateboard, it provides an avenue to education for a population that is not being served by traditional NGOs. Many articles have been written about the amazing work Skateistan has accomplished so far. I have been an avid follower of the organization since reading a NY Times article in 2009.
I sat down with Oliver “Ollie” Percovich at the IASC Summit earlier this month to talk about his history with skateboarding, his motivations, and the work Skateistan is doing on the ground in Kabul.
How did you start skateboarding?
I got my first skateboard from my cousin in 1980, he was skateboarder in the 70s. It was a fiberglass Lightning Bolt board, SGI trucks Slick Stocker wheels. I was 5 or 6 years old at the time and remember rolling on it and falling over and i thought i was going to master this thing because i didn’t like falling over. i was shocked, and remember very clearly that feeling that I was going to do, anyways it just went from there. Im 38 now, so I guess I’ve been skating for 32 years.
Were you into music or anything like that?
Very much so, the influences from skateboarding came through the magazines. So I was very much into getting Transworld and Thrasher. It had a whole lot of culture in there. And I studied and adapted it. I was very much into the Dead Kennedys. Skateboarding really opening me up to seeing what was really out there and I picked up to what was out there. Definitely hardcore music in the late 80s.
Do you think that Skateistan has averted the perception of outsider influence that other aid groups get caught in, like the idea of Americans trying to control the future of Afghans?
Definitely, we’re really really careful to make sure that there wasn’t any aspect of that. And we get respect for it. In our classes we have 5 minutes of Koran study. Some of the kids, some of the street working kids, the really poor ones, they don’t get any religious education anywhere else. Since that’s a big part of their identity they name that as a big reason for coming to Skateistan. The kids latch onto different parts of what we do. But whats important is that what we do isn’t seen as a foreign project. It’s simply skateboarding is used as a tool. A shovel is used in China or Afghanistan or in the United States the same. It’s not seen as cultural imposition. We have to look at it like, a shovel is good for work and a skateboard is good for play."
You can read the full interview at Veganskateblog.com
Source: Vegan Skate
