Coronavirus updates

Curriculum update: Learning to balance

jess — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 10:37:34 +0000

Curriculum update: Learning to balance jess Thu, 08/05/2021 - 12:37

Thu, 08/05/2021 - 12:00

Skateistan is all about balance. Whether that’s on a skateboard, a sense of mental wellbeing and stability or combining learning with fun times.

Over the last few months, Skate and Create students have been following our Natural Balance curriculum, which helps them understand how the natural world works and how we can find healthy balance in our own lives.

Lessons cover our own balance, like hygiene measures and virus protection, proper handwashing techniques, and healthy nutrition as well as the world around us, such as the lifecycle of plants, food chains and how to protect the environment.

Some of our students have been learning about the life cycle of honeybees and how important they are to our natural world. As Covid restrictions have meant that students cannot currently be in the Skate School, this lesson was conducted in whatsapp groups with educators. Students split up into smaller groups and role played the different stages of the honeybee’s life; from eggs to larvae, pupae and then adult bees. The students loved imagining themselves in these different stages - this helps them to see their own journey in stages too. After the class, the students turned creative and made their own illustrated versions of the lifecycle of honey bees and sent their pictures to their educators.

Over in Cambodia, students have been trying their hands at gardening. Covid lockdowns mean that our students in Phnom Penh are still learning from home, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get their hands dirty and create something beautiful! As part of their lessons on the lifecycle of plants, students have been planting seeds and nurturing them. Chilli and lemongrass have been planted and students will now care for the seeds until they mature into plants. They are really excited to see the fruits of their labor. We hope that soon they’ll be able to bring their plants into the Skate School, but for now, we are happy that their plants are brightening up their homes.

This week we were so stoked to open the doors of our Skate School in Johannesburg again. After another lockdown, students are now coming back to Skate School and getting back on their boards.

We’ve even managed to extend our programs to even younger children, through working with an Early Years partnership. Now kids as young as three can try out skateboarding in a place that feels fun and safe. We are sure their balancing skills will be second to none in no time!

If you'd like to support creative programming in our Skate Schools, please consider making a donation to Skateistan today.

Yes

What Skateistan learned about: running remote programs during a global pandemic

alyssa — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 12:54:35 +0000

What Skateistan learned about: running remote programs during a global pandemic alyssa Mon, 09/21/2020 - 14:54

Mon, 09/21/2020 - 12:00

In our series ‘What Skateistan learned about’, we share stories, successes and challenges from the perspective of a non-profit organization operating in Afghanistan, South Africa and Cambodia.

As an international organization that empowers children through skateboarding and education all over the world, Covid-19 brought a whole new set of challenges to delivering programs for our students in each location. We wrote about a lot of these challenges in our post ‘Skateistan Skate Schools Respond To Covid-19’, and detailed how each Skate School has adapted to a new reality over the last few months.

To ensure learning continues for students in their homes, our teams in each location taught lesson plans over the phone, or via WhatsApp. Students were so creative with their homework, and sent it in via WhatsApp to their educators. The Covid-19 realities are different in each location, and it is difficult to reach all Skateistan students remotely as many don’t have internet access.

In South Africa, the long lockdown meant that many parents couldn’t work and this caused food insecurity. Our team in Johannesburg responded by distributing food parcels and sanitary items for girls. In Afghanistan, teams were really worried about the number of children in Internally Displaced People’s camps who were missing out on their education. So they trained up some adults in the camps who could run classes during the lockdown. These classes still had to adhere to social distancing guidelines, but meant that those children were not as isolated as they would have been, especially as most in the camps don’t have internet access. You can read more about that here. In Cambodia, many students had no internet access at home, so educators made up packs for them to collect from the Skate School. This included activities, exercise routines and guidance on hygiene.

One essential part of reopening focused on ensuring that we filled the gaps in reaching students from the first lockdown, ensuring that students without access to the internet will be able to learn alongside their peers.

Reopening Skate Schools

While programs were suspended, the teams in each location worked on plans to reopen safely. And in accordance with advice from local governments in each location, we've re-opened our doors to students and staff in all locations.

To ensure the safety of staff and students, educators are running Dropping In and Skate and Create sessions with the students while maintaining physical distance, and continuing education on Covid-19.

This time has been really challenging. But we know so much more than we did about the ways in which we can reach our students, in case something similar happens again. We don’t know if there will be another lockdown, but we have processes in place now for a range of situations in case students can’t physically come to the Skate School. We learned all of the different barriers and realities in each location to ensure that we can meet the needs of students and their families. Some of these activities include continuing to support students and their families in Johannesburg with food donations and distributions, ensuring homework packages are organized and ready for students to take home should there be another lockdown, who do not have access to the internet in their homes.

More on what we learned about: fundraising campaign during a global pandemic

Another takeaway we’d like to share, running a fundraising campaign during the Covid-19 crisis.

In June and July of this year, Skateistan ran a fundraising campaign called It’s Her Turn which focused on girls' empowerment and the importance of female role models. As a team, we weren’t sure how successful fundraising would be in the midst of a global pandemic. We learned that our supporters all over the world engaged highly with positive news stories in this time of uncertainty. Our It’s Her Turn campaign had an initial fundraising goal of $75,000, and raised just over $109,000, surpassing all of our past fundraising campaigns during the months between May-August.

We learned that additional assets that we created for the first time in this campaign, such as the creation of a photo series to share, as well as running live events through our social media channels which were successful in terms of engagement and reach for our campaign.

While the pandemic makes the world seem so dark, news about creating access to opportunities for our students was really positive for supporters, which led to high engagement and support during the campaign.

If you have the means, please consider supporting Skateistan during this time as we work to reach our most vulnerable students around the world. To stay up to date on all things Skateistan, make sure you’ve subscribed to our monthly newsletter here.

Yes

Coping with Covid: Bringing Skateistan lessons to out-of-school children

jess — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 15:03:05 +0000

Coping with Covid: Bringing Skateistan lessons to out-of-school children jess Thu, 09/10/2020 - 17:03

Thu, 09/10/2020 - 12:00

Staff at Skateistan in Mazar-e-Sharif have been finding ways to reach out-of-school children during the pandemic.

Afghanistan is still deeply affected by conflict and many parts of the country remain volatile and unsafe. Many families relocate to get to safer parts of the country, such as Mazar-e-Sharif, which has a large IDP camp on its outskirts. For four years now, our team in Mazar-e-Sharif has been working with a local camp for internally displaced people, offering out-of-school children a second chance at a formal education. 200 children from the camp have attended Skateistan’s Back-to-School program so far, completing grades 1-3 in just one year and then enrolling in public school. But when Covid-19 hit, the children in the camp were no longer able to attend their classes at Skateistan.

The team in Mazar was especially concerned about the children in the IDP camp. “Of course we want the best for all our students, but the children in the camp are especially vulnerable,” Noorzai, our Programs Officer in Mazar said.

“Many of them have already had their education disrupted by conflict and then relocation; the more times their education is disrupted, the less likely they are to return and finish the program.”

Noorzai

Mazar-e-Sharif

So the teams started strategizing about what they could do to help. “The children cannot come in and out of the camp each day, and neither can we,” Noorzai explains. “So we realized that we’d need to train some community members within the camp if we wanted to keep running the program.”

The team selected two new educators who could lead the classes during the lockdown. Both of them already have experience as teachers in Faryab province and they both know the children involved in the program already. The Back-to-School program follows the Afghan national curriculum, and the team has already developed lesson plans so it was relatively straightforward to get the new educators trained and ready to deliver lessons. One of the new educators also has a room in his home that can be used for lessons, as it has a separate door where the children were able to keep distance from each other while learning.

Now there are around 100 children attending classes within the camp and around half of them are girls. As the Skate School reopens, we have to ensure that children can keep distance from each other so for now, the classes will continue in the IDP camp. The team is working out ways for the students to come to Skateistan at least once a week so they can keep skating as well as learning.

Part of the Back-to-School program also focuses on keeping children healthy. As well as teaching them how to reduce the spread of Covid-19, we also usually give students a hot meal as well as dried fruits and nuts everyday, which are donated by Ziba Foods. The team was determined that the children should not miss out on their nutrition, so as well as learning supplies, they also deliver fruits and nuts, gas for the stove and cooking supplies to keep our students healthy.

Covid-19 has presented us with new challenges, but we’re determined to keep reaching the students who need our programs in a range of different ways. If you’re in a financial position to do so, please consider making a donation to Skateistan today.

Want more positive news in your inbox? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter today.

Yes

Coping with Covid: A view from Johannesburg

jess — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 13:05:45 +0000

Coping with Covid: A view from Johannesburg jess Wed, 09/09/2020 - 15:05

Wed, 09/09/2020 - 12:00

Jess spoke with Enos

Covid-19 has affected people differently all over the world. In this post, we talk to Enos, a Skateistan Educator in South Africa, to get the word on how things have played out in Johannesburg.

As the global pandemic continues to affect children worldwide, our teams have been finding new ways to connect with our students. In this post, we catch up with Enos, an Educator in Skateistan South Africa. Enos reflects on how the pandemic is affecting both students and staff, where the challenges remain and what the team has been able to overcome.

We went into lockdown in mid-March. It’s hard to remember exactly because it feels so long ago. Everyone has been affected. Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s especially bad for people who are daily wage earners - they need to make money today to feed their families tomorrow and they can’t just wait and ride out a lockdown like some people can. When people get laid off, they often relocate and that’s hard for the children who won’t be able to come to Skateistan anymore.

I usually work in our Dropping In center, where students can come and get help with homework, use computers, take part in various activities like games. I try to make sure that every kid can be catered for as well as making sure that they can enjoy the space - at the end of the day they are kids and they need to play games, have fun. We dash and sprinkle a little bit of fun now and then.

Since the lockdown started, our programs have been suspended at the Skate School but we’ve been doing everything we can to reach our students. Mostly that means connecting to their parents via whatsapp, sending activities for students to do. Parents then send us pictures of what the kids have done. They’ve done a lot of craft activities at home - using old stuff to make piggy banks, pencil jars, that sort of thing. They’ve also done a lot of imaginative work - thinking about the future Johannesburg and what that should look like. Our students are so creative so we’ve been trying to set activities that will stretch their minds and imaginations. One challenge is that it’s almost always through their parents and most people have to still work. So kids don’t get their activities until the evening when their parents get home from work. But we are used to the rhythm now and we’re making it work.

For some kids, they don’t have access to a smartphone so we always have to think about the more disadvantaged ones too. For many of those families, affording food is a big issue so we have organized distribution of fresh produce, nutritional porridge and also sanitary items for the girls.

I live in a flat in a building where lots of our students live. Some of them do come up to me and ask questions - I always encourage them to keep the safe distance. They want to talk! They want to share their concerns and they want to be a part of the future. You can tell that they are really missing that personal interaction. Nothing can replace that, especially for kids.

For me it’s been stressful at times. No-one knows what the future holds and whilever the Skate School is closed to students, staff will worry about their own future too. It’s good that we have had assurances about our jobs from Skateistan. I’ve been trying to keep myself busy - connecting with friends, skating when we’re allowed to. Otherwise stress and depression can creep in for anyone. I’m studying theology, working, hanging out with my roommate. I get through, day to day!

When the skate school reopens, the most important thing will be to listen to the kids’ concerns. They haven’t seen their friends for months, they haven’t had a safe space where they can interact, express themselves and so on and we will need to check in with their mental health. And we also need to do this for educators and other staff - everyone will need time and support to adjust and to process what has happened. Some of our programs are designed to help children cope with stress - things like relaxation techniques, conflict management and so on - we will need to prioritize these lessons at first.

As to the future - it will be very important that staff from all locations are consulted in terms of the solutions for coming out of this - we have to give everyone the space to be creative, to innovate and to come up with solutions for managing this time. Everyone has been quick to adapt and to try new things and we should hold on to that. Our students should also be part of how we run Skateistan in the future. We have always tried to keep them at the center of our programing - they have so many ideas on how we can improve things and I hope their voices can be even more central as we move on after this.

The pandemic has raised significant challenges for all our locations, but we have continued to run programs, contact students and families and provide support within our communities. If you are financially able to do so, please consider making a donation today to ensure we can keep supporting our 2,500 students worldwide.

Never miss an update! Get your monthly dose of positive vibes from Skateistan by subscribing to our newsletter today.

Yes

Skateistan Skate Schools Respond To Covid-19

alyssa — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 09:00:41 +0000

Skateistan Skate Schools Respond To Covid-19 alyssa Wed, 06/10/2020 - 11:00

Wed, 06/10/2020 - 12:00

Classes are still temporarily suspended at our Skate Schools due to the ongoing situation with the coronavirus, read how each location has responded to programming needs.

Coronavirus updates

Classes are still temporarily suspended at our Skate Schools due to the ongoing situation with the coronavirus, in accordance with advice from governments in all of the locations of our Skate Schools around the world. Each Skate School has adapted to a new reality over the last few weeks.

Our teams around the world have been extremely flexible and innovative about adapting our programs to a new reality over the past several weeks. Each location's adaptations look a little different but they all have in common a focus on what our students and their families need right now. Skateistan's leadership teams at the Skate Schools are all working on plans for reopening safely. In the meantime, you can read about how each of our Skate School locations adapted their programs during this time, some of their challenges and major learnings from the situation.

We caught up with Skateistan’s Program Officers in each of our Skate School locations to hear how they’ve adapted programs during coronavirus.

Skateistan’s Programs Officer in Mazar-e-Sharif, Noorzai, told us that the situation in Mazar is complicated, as some people are following the distancing rules and but others are not. When Afghanistan’s lockdown measures were introduced mid-March, people followed the guidelines from the Ministry of Public Health for about one week. After this, some people returned to normal, desperate to make up for economic losses and to provide for their families in the time period that followed.

“Many families in the community are poor and rely on the ability to sell daily items in markets, it is not as easy to follow the distancing rules and abide by all gathering bans.”

Noorzai, Mazar-e-Sharif

To connect with students, Skateistan staff and educators are doing what they can to focus on direct needs of students. If families have access to the internet and a smartphone, educators are sending homework via WhatsApp to keep students engaged in all of our Skate School locations around the world.

Some of the projects have included illustrations of proper hygiene during Covid-19, and illustrations of Skateistan flags and skateboard designs. In Johannesburg, educators assigned homework over WhatsApp to make items out of materials lying around their homes. They created flower pots, pencil holders, and skateboard deck designs out of recycled paper.

The Covid-19 realities are different in South Africa, and we reached out to the Programs Officer at Skateistan South Africa, Vuyo to hear a little more about the situation in Johannesburg.

“The only way to remain in contact with students right now is through WhatsApp, and Zoom for our older students in ‘This Girl Can’ (Youth Leadership) program where they meet once a month.” - Vuyo

In terms of Covid-19 and the situation around the Skateistan neighborhood, some people are obeying mask-wearing and distancing regulations, and some are not. In the more vulnerable parts of the neighborhood there may be a line of up to 200 people waiting to receive social assistance grants on any given day, making it very difficult to distance from others.

In Johannesburg, it is difficult to reach all Skateistan students due to a lack of access to the internet. This is a reality for more than half of Skateistan Johannesburg students, creating a barrier to access Skateistan activities and instructions from educators. For the students that are able to access the internet, some then lack the resources to be able to complete homework assignments, such as pencil crayons, office supplies and writing material. When possible, students connected to the WhatsApp group complete assigned tasks from their educators, which they really enjoy.

In Phnom Penh, staff are calling students every week to make sure they and their families are receiving adequate information about Covid-19, and supplying resources and assistance when possible. After adjusting to the new realities of Covid-19 for Skateistan in Phnom Penh, educators created a system to assist students that lack the resources to complete homework assignments at home. Following adequate social distancing guidelines, students can come pick up homework activities and resources at the Skate School. When they complete their work, they can return it back to educators and receive new tasks, such as coloring pictures, using crayons, doing math activities and reading storybooks.

Kubra, General Manager in Kabul, said that many people were not following social distancing guidelines or wearing masks, and that a lot of our students’ families rely on work opportunities as daily wage earners. Although they want to abide by the rules and stay home, they rely on daily income to be able to feed and support their families. Similarly, educators can only reach students that have access to the internet and a smartphone, or access to a phone in their home. Many students and their families live in IDP camps, and their lack of income is a major barrier to access them and provide learning opportunities while the Skate School is closed.

Challenges overall

A lot of the challenges to connect with students in all of our Skate School locations are due to the fact that we’re working with vulnerable children in extreme circumstances. To reach our students during this time, we've held weekly remote programs meetings with students from all Skate Schools and international staff, to share mental health skills, best resources, challenges, and plans. Educators are running Skate and Create classes over WhatsApp in South Africa, and over the phone in Afghanistan and Cambodia. Our students are also helping their families around the house more than usual and taking on new roles like baking and gardening.

Our programs teams around the world are antsy to reopen to be able to meet the needs of our students. In order to reopen our Skate School locations safely, we must take advice from the local governments in each location who decide when it will be safe to do so. At each of the Skate Schools, we will stick to strict hygiene standards, coordinate lesson plans and a timetable that ensure we can get our most vulnerable and hardest to reach students caught up with what they’ve missed over the last several weeks.

Our most vulnerable students, some of whom we’re not able to keep in contact with, will continue to face challenging circumstances upon their return back to Skateistan programs. When they come back, support will be focused on their immediate needs, such as mental health support, and allotted extra time in their program schedule to talk to each other and their educators about their experiences during Covid-19 closures. We are beyond excited for our students to come back to the Skate Schools and learn alongside peers and mentors in the skatepark as well as the classroom, watch this space for updates for when that will be!

If you have the means, please consider supporting Skateistan during this time as we work to reach our most vulnerable students around the world. To stay up to date on all things Skateistan, make sure you’ve subscribed to our monthly newsletter here.

Oliver Percovich: Skate and Create Difference

jess — Fri, 15 May 2020 12:19:22 +0000

Oliver Percovich: Skate and Create Difference jess Fri, 05/15/2020 - 14:19

Fri, 05/15/2020 - 12:00

Guest post from Skateistan Founder and Executive Director, Oliver Percovich, on the importance of creativity.

Creativity has always been a huge part of Skateistan’s focus. For us, it’s not just about getting children on skateboards, it’s about giving them the space and the tools to harness their creativity. If we really want to create future leaders, we have to trust in their own creativity to come up with ideas and solutions that we have never thought of. I love the the words of Henry David Thoreau in Walden:

“The old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial.”

We have to provide opportunities for expression and outlets for children’s creativity. Instead of stifling creativity - telling children to stop asking questions or to stop questioning authority, we must encourage it so that they can solve the tricky problems that they have unfortunately inherited from us. At Skateistan, nurturing creativity happens in the skatepark and it also happens in the classroom, where we run creative, arts-based education. The idea of this is to give children an opportunity to explore issues and challenges that they may not learn about in formal school. We encourage them to come up with creative ideas around community engagement, gender discrimination and climate change.

Personally, my main creative outlet remains skateboarding. Since last week it has been possible to go skateboarding again in Berlin, Germany where I live and it was a big relief. I know that many of our students are fantasizing of skateboarding again at their local Skateistan Skate School. I hope that it is soon safe enough for us to reopen and they can have their creative playgrounds back. In many countries, creative self-expression is not always possible or easy and it is another reminder of how lucky many of us are to express ourselves so freely.

While our students are stuck at home, we have been helping them get as creative as possible through gardening, baking, doing artwork and making videos. They simply brought their Skateistan activities home with them and we are doing all we can to support them with art materials, phone calls and WhatsApp groups. On our homepage if you scroll down to “Updates from the Skate Schools” you can see in real time how many students we are reaching in each of our locations.

At Skateistan we are looking at creative ways of staying connected. We started doing Instagram live weekly on Thursdays at 6pm CET/9am PST. The week before last we were lucky enough to have Tony Hawk interview Sky Brown. It was a very sweet conversation between two of our amazing Citizens of Skateistan (are you a Citizen of Skateistan as well?). Sky had some creative questions for Tony as well which was hilarious. Missed it? Don’t miss the next one!

We have also had a number of Goodpush webinars which brings a big community of skateboarders together. We don’t always have the answers. It is much more about creating community and sharing information between us all. It’s about pooling creativity and skateboarders are by and large a creative bunch with amazing new ideas.

The creativity and innovation that the scientific community is showing to beat COVID-19 is inspiring. In times of struggle, there have often been huge leaps forward in our human capacity and it is no different now. Much smaller examples are also just as inspiring, like people finding ways to reach those who are vulnerable, people making their own masks (and for others) and placing images or messages in their windows to keep spirits up. Even small businesses have found ways to make things work in unprecedented times.

Skateistan cannot manufacture ventilators or produce testing kits, but we can keep our students and families motivated and comforted. They love hearing from us and we can often give them important health advice. We let them know they’ve not been forgotten and through channels like this, keep telling the world about what they’re doing. No-one should feel that they are too small to make a difference. I’ll leave you with the words of the scientist Jane Goodall:

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

In these challenging times, Skateistan needs your support so we can ensure that our students don't feel left behind in the crisis. If you're in a position to do so, please consider making a donation to Skateistan today.

Want more good news from Skateistan? Sign up to our newsletter and get a monthly dose of positivity, straight to your inbox.

Telling the story of our Covid-19 response

jess — Thu, 07 May 2020 09:49:29 +0000

Telling the story of our Covid-19 response jess Thu, 05/07/2020 - 11:49

Thu, 05/07/2020 - 12:00

The coronavirus has brought many challenges, including how we continue to reach our students and how we gather data about those interactions. In this post, we take a look at the numbers behind our Covid-19 response

Coronavirus updates

Due to the coronavirus situation, all our regular programs are currently suspended. But we’re still working hard to connect with students and offer alternatives wherever we can. We caught up with Skateistan’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager, Lauren Della Marta, to get an update on the numbers behind our response to the global pandemic.

Monitoring student attendance in our sports and education programs helps us work towards our goals, such as 50% girls’ participation. It also allows us to identify trends over time such as student absences and engagement with our various programs.

Our educators take attendance for each of their classes on a daily basis using Skateistan's custom-built app. They enter key information such as the date, student names and lesson activities and this information is then stored in our database. On the homepage of our website, you can see the total student attendance and learning hours for each day, and girls’ participation for the past week. These are just our highlight stats that we think our supporters will be most interested in - there’s a whole load of other data that we gather for our own processes of monitoring, evaluation and learning.

We put this data on the website so that everyone can see the difference we are making each and every day. This is also about transparency - we value trust and we want our supporters to trust us to give them the real picture. For example, in the first week that our students were in lockdown, our data read zero on the website because we hadn’t yet worked out our program of reaching them remotely.

Since all of our Skate Schools temporarily closed on March 16th, we have kept in touch with as many students and their families as possible and are regularly communicating through phone calls and Whatsapp groups instead. Recently, some of our students in Afghanistan and South Africa have been attending remote lessons, so attendance is being taken as usual in our virtual classes and you can see this data appearing in the graphs on the website homepage. As we increase our reach, these numbers will also go up.

Our teams have been delivering remote lessons through WhatsApp and phone calls wherever possible, and the feedback we are getting is that these activities are helping our students feel better about staying at home, keeping everyone safer. In Kabul, students learned about personal hygiene and good habits. The word has spread and we've had requests from siblings and extended family members to join Skateistan's remote program lessons! In Bamyan and Mazar-e-Sharif, students learned about anger management and the environment. These lessons helped students and their parents to work together and collaborate with each other in cleaning and other duties whilst at home. Our female youth leadership students in Mazar resumed their weekly meetings via WhatsApp, discussing how to be good role models, and about following regular school subjects which are being aired on national television. In Johannesburg, the team continued to teach a handful of high school students English and Math, and sent out a creative collage art activity. In Phnom Penh, the team has been connecting with neighborhood students by phone, and helping them with their homework. As some staff are able to be back in the office now, students who live in the area are starting to pick up art supplies and story books from the Skate School to read at home. These students are also dropping off their homework activities to be checked and to pick up new activities.

We are really proud of our educators for providing these lessons, as it's a huge technology challenge! But not all of our students are able to attend remote lessons, so we are also looking into more creative and offline ways to provide support as well as accompanying ways to record these interactions. This has included organizing the distribution of food parcels for families in Johannesburg as well as calling students one at a time to check in with them and give them ideas for fun activities, like gardening and baking. This is especially true in Afghanistan, where only around 10% of our students have internet access at home.

We also have to remember that from this data alone we can't fully understand the impact our programs are making. What have students learned? What difference has Skateistan made in their lives? Do we need to change our programs in any way? The numbers alone can’t answer those questions. So that's why we use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data including interviews, surveys, observations and focus groups on top of attendance data - looking at ourselves from all possible angles to learn from and improve the quality of our creative educational programs.

Want more good news from Skateistan? Sign up to our newsletter and get a monthly dose of positivity, straight to your inbox.

Oliver Percovich: Motivation Makes the Difference

jess — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 14:54:00 +0000

Oliver Percovich: Motivation Makes the Difference jess Tue, 04/28/2020 - 16:54

Tue, 04/28/2020 - 12:00

Oliver Percovich

Our Founder and Executive Director writes a guest post about the importance of finding the things which motivate each one of us. Oliver has been inspired by the teams at our Skate Schools who are determined to reach students during the pandemic.

Motivation is key, especially at a time like this when we don’t know what the future holds and all our best plans are falling through our fingers. There were many times while I lived in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2014 when I felt sapped of all energy, bad news seemingly continuously surrounding me. I was astonished how resilient Afghans were in spite of everything going wrong around them, attempting to live their lives fully and very much in the moment. That was motivating and inspiring to me. That’s actually how I’d like to live all the time.

One thing that’s really motivated me lately is seeing the enormous effort our unstoppable staff in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa have put into creating and sharing resources and support systems for our students while they can’t come to our Skate Schools.

When only a very small percentage of our students have access to the internet or even a telephone in places like Afghanistan this can be quite tricky. Where we would have visited a student’s house before to have a cup of tea and a chat with the parents, we now have to reach them in other ways, usually by phone. Skateistan Educators have been sharing accurate information about Covid-19 and how to prevent its spread and they have been checking in on families to ensure students’ physical and mental wellbeing is ok. That has been an unexpected surprise for many of the families.

Sometimes things don’t work according to plan. We arranged for donations of fresh vegetables for our students and their families in Johannesburg, but word spread about the food handout and hundreds of people ended up outside our Skate School gates almost causing a riot last Friday. But our General Manager, Mbali, found a solution and the Skateistan students’ families got their food packages safely the following day.

There has been student artwork on social distancing as well as loads of video meets, including the girls’ empowerment “This Girl Can” group in Joburg.

Another way to get motivated is to share with others. This was something I also learned from my time living in Kabul. Bottling up is not a good coping strategy. Even if it’s sharing a struggle, or a bad day, it’s better to know you're not alone. Last week, the Goodpush Alliance hosted a COVID-19 Sharing Webinar with staff from 25+ other social skateboarding projects all around the world to discuss and share on how everyone is coping with the coronavirus crisis. It was great to get ideas and inspiration from others. Here’s some things we learned:

The importance of staff looking after their own wellbeing before focusing on supporting their participants, like putting your own oxygen mask on first on an airplane.
That many of these projects provide valuable social connection and role models for the young people they serve, even when skateboarding programs can’t happen.
While different contexts affect how we can adapt our programs (for example the level of internet access participants have) we also share many common challenges and solutions.
These unique circumstances have made many organizations more open and available for collaboration, since – for the first time – this is just as easy to do across distances as it is within our own cities, and we will be able to adapt our programs more quickly if we work together.
Sharing challenges and ideas with peers is super motivating – based on positive feedback we will run another Goodpush Sharing Webinar on 30 April.

It’s these connections and examples from others that keep me motivated. After more than 12 years of programs, I'm thrilled that Skateistan has just launched its Alumni Network, a way for all of our former students to connect, inspire and support each other. This is a time when we need compassionate leaders, with their communities as their first priority. That might look very different from what we think of when someone says ‘leader.’

Our alumni are all Citizens of Skateistan – members of our global community who share our vision of creating leaders for a better world. In our Skate Schools, we’re not just teaching kids to skate – we’re allowing them to come up with creative solutions to the world’s problems. A lesson like ‘Ideal Country’ or ‘Human Rights Island’ is designed to give children permission to imagine a different future. As the world around us changes and definitions of things alter in our minds, what does a good leader look like now? What does a good citizen do? How do those people behave in a new and challenging situation like the corona pandemic?

I’m excited to find out what we’ll learn from the next generation of leaders as I’m sure they have better ideas than we have. That’s really motivating.

Skateistan needs your support so we can reach our students in these uncertain times. If you're in a financial position to do so, please consider making a donation to Skateistan today.

Want more updates like this? Sign up for our newsletter and get a good news delivery straight to your inbox.

Skateistan Alumni: Meet Tamim

jess — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 13:10:41 +0000

Skateistan Alumni: Meet Tamim jess Tue, 04/21/2020 - 15:10

Tue, 04/21/2020 - 12:00

Tamim attended Skateistan in Mazar. Recently, he found a way to help people in his community - a lesson he learned from his Skateistan educators.

Skateistan recently launched its Alumni Network, a way for fomer students to connect and inspire each other. One such former student is Tamim, who attended Skateistan programs in Mazar-e-Sharif. Tamim embodies what it means to be a Citizen of Skateistan, as we found out recently in a conversation with him. Tamim tells his story in his own words.

My name is Tamim, and I’m 20 years old. I am from kind of a big family and we live together in Mazar-e-Sharif. Actually we are from Parwan province, but due to the internal fighting there, we moved to Mazar-e-Sharif to live in peace. I have three brothers and three sisters, among them only my father is working to make money for us all to live! I just graduated from school and am seeking a job to help my father. My brothers and sisters are all attending primary school to make a better future for themselves and my father is supporting them all.

I am a former Skateistan student. I started coming to the program in 2016 and continued for almost three years which was really fun and also useful in my personal life. Before attending Skateistan I went to school and studied my lessons, and that was the only thing I had to do. I am deaf and people thought that because I’m disabled, I can’t do anything else! There was no one to push me to do sports or anything else, so I had to sit at home and do nothing.

After participating in Skateistan programs I learned a lot of things that I never thought I could do because of my disability. In Skateistan I found my talent and became brave through education and sports taught by kind educators. When I saw skateboarding for the first time, I thought it might be impossible for me because I’d never done any kinds of sports. But after I tried it was really fun and I found I could learn and improve. Besides skateboarding, I also learned how to play football at Skateistan, which made me join FC Public-Health football team which is one of the famous and supported teams in the city of Mazar.

Now my favorite thing to do is sport, especially football and skateboarding. I love skateboarding because it gives me positive energy. It makes me feel that I am not disabled and I can do things like others.

In Afghanistan there are many people who come from poor backgrounds and most of them are seeking help to meet their daily needs. I’m one of them, but I’m always looking to help people in any way I can. Recently I heard a lot from the Public Health body that advises people to protect themselves from COVID19. I saw that there are some people who can't even buy a mask for themselves, so I decided to find a solution! I was motivated to make masks by myself and give them to people in the community, because at least I will be able to serve other human beings. I worked for three days, day and night to make 500 masks for those who could not afford one themselves.

After I made the masks I went to the Public Health body and to the Municipality to let them know that I’m going to present these masks to the poor people around the Blue Mosque (a famous mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif). So by approval of both government branches I went to give the masks to the people. They were really happy and appreciated what I did! It makes me feel brave and opens ways to consider different aspects to help people from nothing.

Tamim has made his father proud by the kindness and determination he has shown.

“Tamim is my older son and he is a meek person. All our family members and our neighbors love him. He is deaf but he has never let that stop him communicating with others and helping his brothers and sisters to study. It’s because he knows the impact of education in daily lives. Before, I thought that Tamim might not be able to go to school and study because he’s deaf, but after a while I realized that he is able to do things like others. Skateistan has impacted a lot in his life because he learned a lot from his educators. Before attending Skateistan sometimes he was confused because there was nothing for him to do, but after attending Skateistan he is motivated to attend other governmental places including FC Public-Health football team, which is not easy to be a member of. I’m thankful for Skateistan because they helped Tamim to see the bigger picture, and made him not think that he is a disabled.”

Skateistan needs support at this time to keep providing support and assistance to our students and their families. If you're in a financial position to do so, please consider making a donation to Skateistan today.

Oliver Percovich: Connections in the time of corona

jess — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 12:08:00 +0000

Oliver Percovich: Connections in the time of corona jess Tue, 04/14/2020 - 14:08

Tue, 04/14/2020 - 12:00

Oliver Percovich

Guest post from Skateistan's Founder and Executive Director on the current coronavirus pandemic and how Skateistan is managing in the crisis.

Like every organization in the world, Skateistan has been trying to adjust to the challenges presented by the current coronavirus situation. It’s an unprecedented time and no one has a blueprint of how to manage it, either at a personal or an organization-wide level.

In some ways, Skateistan might be more ready than some organizations. We have Skate Schools in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa and our HQ in Berlin, so we’re used to remote meetings, patchy internet connections and the feeling of distance between colleagues. We’ve always tried to be as flexible as we can in terms of people’s working patterns - this is not the first time we’ve had a toddler on the screen in our video conference meetings!

The glaring difference however is for our students. In March we took the decision to temporarily close all our Skate Schools for the safety of our staff and students. After 11 years of continuously running programs in Kabul, it’s hard to think of the facility closed for now and the students at home. I was so proud of Skateistan being able to still operate through almost impossible situations, especially in Kabul, when many other international organisations were packing their bags and leaving when the going got tougher. We know this will only be temporary but it weighs heavy, knowing that for many students, one of the few places that they can have fun and feel safe is not available to them right now. They need Skateistan and we fight to provide our programs to them every day of the year.

Since the situation began, our programs team has been working constantly to find ways to reach our students. Once again it’s a reminder of the different ways that global events are experienced by varying groups of people. My friends here in Europe are flooded with online resources and ideas to keep kids happy (or at least entertained). For many of our students and their families, this is just not possible. Only around 10% of our students’ families in Afghanistan have access to the internet (25% in Cambodia and 60% in South Africa), so sending out resources from the Skate School to our students isn’t always an option. We’ve got a great team with plenty of energy and creativity, so we’ll find ways. But it’s an important reminder that ‘we’re all in this together’ doesn’t necessarily mean we’re experiencing the same thing.

Our early focus has been on keeping in touch with families. It’s really important that we help out in terms of passing on accurate information about virus prevention as rumours can spread very quickly and this can be dangerous. We’re also sharing tips on maintaining good mental health in challenging times. For many students, who can’t see their friends and educators, just knowing that someone is still thinking of them can be very powerful.

In South Africa, the team has added almost 100 parents to a whatsapp group so they can share ideas for keeping students entertained at home, share accurate information about the virus and its prevention, and even for parents to vent about the challenges of having kids at home in a small space. We’ve asked students in South Africa to work on a drawing of what they can see from their window. We’re hoping to involve other staff and students in this so we can all share in something common - a way of connecting when everything feels like it exists in a vacuum.

In Cambodia, our Community Educator has been calling parents to check in on students and make sure they are safe. In Afghanistan, staff have been organizing conference calls with parents to bring the community together, even in these challenging times. The team is also busily working on how resources can be distributed safely over the next few weeks.

In this time of distancing, what we’re learning more than ever is that kindness and connection are key. Reminding yourself to always ask how someone is, how their family is, and what the situation looks like for them before you jump in with a work question. Remembering that stress can manifest in unexpected ways. Considering that lockdown in one place is very different from another. Being open to learning more than you’re teaching.

We cannot wait until our Skate Schools are back open, and full of the noise of excited, happy kids. Until then, let’s hope we can all connect in a way that is kind, that lets people know that wherever they are in the world, they have not been forgotten.

I want to leave you with a story of kindness from Mazar-e-sharif in Afghanistan. Tamim, who is deaf and is a former student of Skateistan, has become a tailor. When he heard that masks were needed, he jumped into action, making over 200 face masks to distribute to people in the city who couldn’t afford them. In the photos that were provided by Noorzai (one of the original Mekroyan crew) you can see Tamim at the famous Blue Mosque in Mazar fitting the masks he made. Tamim embodies the spirit of a Citizen of Skateistan.

Skateistan needs support to keep rolling through the current coronavirus crisis. We know that many people's financial situation has been affected. If you're still able to, please consider making a donation to Skateistan today so we can continue to support our students through this challenging time.