Australian skate photographer, Steve Lightfoot did a trip down the Silk road a few years ago and got kids in Tashkent interested in skateboarding. He then started collecting boards from friends to send to Uzbekistan. Due to an unreliable postage system and prohibitative shipping costs he has donated the near new skate equipment to us at Skateistan for the kids in Kabul. The donation includes 15 decks, 7 sets of wheels and bearings, griptape, 2 sets of mounting hardware and a pair of new skate shoes. Thank you very much Steve. If anyone has skateboarding equipment, in decent condition, that they want to donate to Skateistan please contact Oliver by email (skateistan@gmail.com) or phone +61 (0) 400 019 494.
Check it out
http://www.skateboard.it/canali/shownews.php?id_news=1277
Ok, if you cant read Italian, it basically says we are doing good stuff for Afghans and that we are good ambassadors for the wider skateboarding community.
Congratulazioni dei tipi per Skateistan!
UPDATE: Try this tranlation!
Skateistan today secured a donation of $6000 worth of safety equipment from TSG of Switzerland. TSG is the world’s leader in manufacturing of skate, snowboard and BMX protection gear. TSG is going to supply Skateistan with the latest in helmets, knee pads, elbow pads and wrist guards for our wee skater students!
THANK YOU TSG!
While developing the Skateistan project we are always trying to be as culturally insightful as possible. So we were thinking it would be logical and cool to invent a word’s for ‘Skateboard’ in Dari.
So to all the Dari / English / Farsi speakers out there, we want to hear your suggestions. The word should be combination of the English word ‘board’ and either ‘move’, ‘roll’, ’skate’, or something that describes the motion of skating.
So please email your suggestions to skateistan@gmail.com or post your comment below.
The best word/s suggestion will win a Skateistan T shirt!
This week Skateistan was interviewed by respected German magazine Der Spiegel and we went in search of Animal Chin. We didnt find him, but we did find a cool car park.
Travis is busy scouting for locations for our skate school. He has filed a report and attached photos of the real estate on offer in Kabul here.
We are proud to present the new Skateistan logo. A big thank you to Alexandra Bald who has designed something we are very proud of. All T-shirts, badges, stickers and other organisational materials will now have this logo.
Last Monday the 31st of March, the original Skateistan crew cruised down to the Amani School armed with a new skateboard donated by Black Box. Rising security levels since the Serena Hotel bombing however meant the boys were told they couldn’t skate in the school grounds but could instead roll in the school car park next to Presidents Karzai’s office.
Hameed had injured himself the night before, but he was stoked after Travis presented him and the rest of the boys with their new T-shirts.
The boys jumped straight into it, with Masoud determined to land his first ever and Afghanistan’s first ever ollie. Within no time, children started appearing with a few familiar faces including Naaser from the class of 2007 who took a break from his day job as a beggar to have a ride. There were few more firsts for Afghanistan in the session including the first female skater (name withheld)Â and the first blind man to ride a skateboard.
If this is what we can do in our first week with three boards and a car park, imagine what we can do once we deliver the 30 boards and the 50 pairs of shoes from Black Box and build a skate park!
Congratulations to Travis for a very successful start to Skateistan in Kabul for 2008.
Skateistan had a benefit gig on the 22nd of March at 303 in Northcote, Victoria, Australia. The fundraiser raised $2800 from door entry and an auction as well as the sale of prints, t-shirts, drinks, badges and stickers. Thank you very much everyone who came along and contributed to making the the night such a success. The money raised at the gig will go towards rent and building ramps once we have secured a site for the school. Our photos and others from the night are up.
