SKATEISTAN

After communicating with for the last month and a half with veteran skateboarder Boy Ipoh and recently Wan Kedah from the NGO skatemalaysia, they have now become a partner organisation. It is very important for us to have links to skateboarders in other Muslim countries, as it will help with acceptance of skateboarding in Afghanistan. The Malaysian skateboarders have also expressed interest to come over as instructors as well as collect equipment for the project. We wish them luck with their fundraising efforts and sincerely hope they can manage to send some instructors over here.

If you are a skateboarder in another Islamic country we would like to hear from you and your experiences.

Today we celebrated International Day of Peace with a skate session at Macrorayan attended by many onlookers from the neighborhood. We plastered the blue stickers showing a dove for peace all over the fountain, the skateboards and our clothes. Skateboarding is definitely accepted by the community in Macrorayan, Kabul and the community think that we are initiating a path for peace through having foreigners and the local children interacting in a way rarely seen in Kabul. Together with a live interview on BBC radio today with Mirwais Mohsen and Oliver Percovich, Skateistan spread the word that skateboarding   can link parts of the world together that rarely even talk. Ping pong diplomacy worked for US-Sino relations in the past, so there is no reason why skateboarding can’t achieve the same for the current Muslim-West divide.