this year's eric stricker memorial award goes to...

skateistan & oliver percovich!

this year’s eric stricker memorial award deservedly goes to the incredible people at skateistan, who have spent the past eight years using skateboarding as a tool of empowerment for youths in afghanistan, south africa and cambodia. founded by oliver percovich in 2007 and with their first facility opened in ’09 in kabul, the non-profit, non-governmental organization works with children from a range of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds in some of the most war-torn and impoverished countries on the planet to build trust, offer educational opportunities and bring hope to youths whose lives and living conditions might otherwise seem exceedingly difficult from our perspective of first-world comforts.

read more, here...

- tws.

check out skateistan.

skateistan movie trailer.

skateistan is afghanistan’s (and the world’s) first co-educational skateboarding school. the school engages growing numbers of urban and internally-displaced youth in afghanistan through skateboarding, and provides them with new opportunities in cross-cultural interaction, education, and personal empowerment programs. the students are selected from all of afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. they will develop skills in skateboarding, skateboarding instruction, healthy habits, civic responsibility, information technology, the arts, and languages. the students themselves decide what they want to learn; we connect them with teachers who will enable them to develop the skills that they consider important. since skateistan has been active in kabul, we’ve seen that afghan youth of all ethnicities, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds love to skateboard. skateistan brings them together, equipping young men and women to lead their communities toward social change and development.

- skateistan.

check out skateistan.