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30 champions were in Vishakhapatnam at the Indian Skateboarding Championships – and five won medals! 2 x gold 1 x silver 2 x bronze And the girls have taken the lead! Asha and Kalpna (far left) won gold in their age groups, Dilasha (middle) won bronze! Vinay (second left) made it to silver in the […]
Kamla Gond. For me this lady is one of the bravest and strongest women in Janwaar. She is Asha‘s mother. Her trust in Asha and me paved the way for so many things which have happened in Janwaar. She didn’t shy away from being threatened, mistreated and disdained. She somehow felt, that she had to […]
A few weeks I was at Panchgani and someone showed me a video about a “handwashing machine”. I fell in love with it and I showed it to the kids back in Janwaar. Now Brijendra has taken the lead and built on at Villa Janwaar together with the kids. And it seems that they love […]
Another story from a different kind of world. Father and son in the fields around Janwaar. The father was married when he was 12 years old. He was married to the wife of his elder brother when the brother suddenly passed away. Pure economic reasons and to keep the wife out of a life in […]
Now things become more official – skateboarding has become Olympic 🙂 Now the RSFI – Roller Skating Federation of India – has become an important role for the skateboarders in India. Under the RSFI (= national level) there are now on state level qualifiers. And these qualifiers were in Janwaar last week. The qualification was […]
November 20, 2019 I think will be remembered as a BIG day in Janwaar. Certainly the kids and I will remember – for me, I feel, it was the most important day since I’ve arrived in Janwaar five years ago! The kids broke their silence and spoke up in front of the village community at […]
For three days the village was packed! We hosted 33 kids from VITS School in Satna and six of their teachers! They all stayed with us in our homestays and at the Villa Janwaar – this made us very happy! The “city kids” wanted to explore a village and of course they wanted to learn […]
Girls, not Brides! November 5th was a big day for Asha – she gave her first public talk in English. We’ve been practising for days and when finally D-day was here; she got a bit nervous 🙂 We were invited to speak at the conference “Changing the Game: Sports for Gender Equity and Ending Child […]
To act as a team and to support each other is probably one of the toughest things to learn for our open school kids. The quote: the team is only as good as its weakest team member is very hard for them to put into practice. Since January 2019 the five kids – Asha, Arun, […]
As an offshot of the The Rural Changemaker e.V., Berlin, Germany, the Barefoot Skateboarders Organization is an independent section 8 company, registered in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. It serves the village of Janwaar. It was founded by the youth of Janwaar – two of the young leaders, Asha Gond and Karan Yadav are directors and have […]