Review: Skateistan, a Park of Hope for Afghan Youth

Tittle af the Article: Skateboarding in Afghanistan Provides a Diversion From Desolation
Author: Adam B. Ellick
Date of Publication: January 25, 2009
Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/sports/othersports/26skate.html?pagewanted=1

Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

In the violent reality in which people live in Afghanistan, Oliver Percovich, a 34 years old skateboarder from Australia, tries to give youth a little bit of fun. In this country where war is an everyday reality, children find it very difficult to have the normal life a child deserves.

Violence, shootings and suicide bombers have become common aspects of their lives, taking into account that children in Afghanistan grow up among them.

Oliver Percovich has the will to open the first skateboarding school park of Afghanistan, which will offer Afghan youth an alternative to their violent and devastating reality.

Its important to recognize the will of Kabul authorities to approve Percovich's project although they didn't give him yet an official authorization.

For most of Afghanistan children, skateboarding will be their first sport. However more than offering them the chance to practise a sport and to have fun, Percovich's idea also has a democratizing sense. His school will try to "mend the nation's deep social and ethnic division". The skateboarding park will be open for children of all the country despite they social status and ethic origin. In this school children will have the posibility to share more time with other children of a different ethnicity as well as with children of a different economical position than their. The idea is to join Afghanistan youth under one single cause.

Afghanistan has the highest proportion of school age children in the world, according to the United Nations. For the vast majority of them, sports are virtually nonexistent and most public schools don't even have a playground. For Afghan children, a new positive environment is the best way to seek for a better future, and this is what Skateistan, the first skateboarding school of Afghanistan, will try to offer them.