Skateistan Launches Online Toolkit for Community Skate Projects

January 25, 2019

Last week, Skateistan launched the first online resource toolkit for social skateboarding projects worldwide. The toolkit comes as part of the Goodpush Alliance, which was formed last year by Beyond Sport Global Award Winners, Skateistan. The initiative aims to create a global network of skateboarding for development organizations and to help share knowledge, ideas and good practice in order to increase collective impact.

Skateistan is an award-winning international non-profit organization that uses skateboarding and education for youth empowerment. Over 2,800 children, aged 5–17, attend Skateistan’s programs in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa.

In June 2018, Skateistan, together with Pushing Boarders, conducted the first ever worldwide survey of social skateboarding projects. Over 100 skate projects responded from over 50 countries and 90% of the respondents said they would make use of free online resources to assist in running their skate projects. 

In response to this, Goodpush has now published a toolkit of resources which is freely available online.

Skateistan’s Skate Project Specialist, Rhianon Bader, who runs The Goodpush Alliance said: “The idea behind The Goodpush Alliance is to increase our combined impact by bringing all these amazing social skateboarding projects together so we can share our ideas, knowledge and successes.”

The first of its kind survey provides new insight into the landscape of organizations using skating to do good.

One third of the skate projects who responded to the survey have an annual budget of 5,000 USD or less. Just over one quarter (28%) of the projects have one or more full-time paid staff member and 65% of them depend on part-time volunteers.

43% of the combined beneficiaries are female and one third of the projects have at least one female staff member. Just under 5% of all beneficiaries are living with a disability.

The aims of social skate projects are very much aligned, with 71% saying they wanted to grow the local skate community and 70% saying they aimed to develop life skills among their participants.

In 2013, Skateistan won our Sport for Education Award. They have been shortlisted two other times, most recently for the Global Impact Award in 2017.