Why skateboarding?

Many people ask me why skateboarding? Why not any other sport?

What they want to ask is actually can only skateboarding trigger the kind of change we are witnessing in Janwaar or would any other sport do the same?

I am tempted to say only skateboarding can. And here is why:

Skateboarding culture is very often understood as counterculture!
Against the mainstream.
It’s about disobedience, resilience, finding your own way.
It’s about everything this village Janwaar did NOT have!

So when you build a skatepark in such a village and hand out skateboards to the kids, something has to happen! No? That’s a very natural thing.  Too contrary are the two scenarios – the traditional village in which nothing has really happened over the last decades and on the other side this very dynamic and attractive sport.

I’ll see the skatepark as a disruptor.

It has made the villagers, especially the kids move. They are finding new ways … So all I or we do is guiding them on their new ways and help them to move forward.

And the moment movement starts, change happens. Most importantly it is change which is initiated, started by the kids, villagers themselves … Not by us! And this is why the chances are pretty good, that it will sustain!