How were you able to get things rolling? I had been doing a lot of skateboarding around the city and found that every time I did this, a huge number of kids would flock around to see this new thing. It was obvious that this was the perfect tool to get kids to come so that we could interview them. So we built some portable ramps and took them with us to get the kids involved and with the buzz of skateboarding, find out why the children were travelling so far and putting themselves at so much risk. Wonderful things started to happen.
families and of course themselves. The tool of trade chosen by the children was a shoeshine box. A shoeshine box? The shoeshine box is cheap and portable. The problem is there are numerous kids who are shining shoes and they only get 10 cents per shine for their work. What we also learned was that whenever we brought a skateboard out children, youth and adults in the hundreds would come out of nowhere. This was when I had a light bulb moment. If skateboarding was such a successful draw card, it would be a incredible waste not to do something with it. I realized if we used the connectivity of skateboarding that I had seen all my life, attach it to education in a short time frame learning curve then we can facilitate change.
So what did you do to replace the shoeshine box? Traditional education takes so long. All the building materials that are normally wood in a western home are predominantly metal in Ethiopia in low-income homes. Door frames, window frames, security For the past two years, Skateworks has been a central engagement in “A Day for Street Children� in Addis Ababa. doors for those Photo: Tom Noonan windows, gates and the security spikes on the fences Connectivity, confidence, motivation, to keep thieves out. Metal fabrication leadership and inner strength. The spirit is without doubt the dominant trade in of skateboarding was alive and well in Ethiopia. The equipment is relatively small Ethiopia! We started to interview the but expensive and repairs are needed when kids and find out why they were falling it breaks down. through the cracks. From the interviews we had with the children, we found out Skateworks developed a solution. The the answer. Children were coming into Skateworks home made welder was the central city by foot, some 200 hundred developed through R&D with the Central kilometers to earn money to feed their 64 | CONCRETE WAVE - HOLIDAYS 2016
Australian College in Melbourne. It is a welder that is made from readily available components; emergency shut off safety switches and prefabricated commercial componentry. This allowed the youth from 13 years and above to be able to build their own welding unit in the first week. From here they learn how to repair it in the second week and therefore have a tool for life. There is no Walmart in rural Ethiopia and home repairs are crucial and compared to what a homemade equipment was currently being used. The welder is not only light years ahead, it was light and replaced the shoe shine box with a tool that could really create an income sufficient to allow the youth to return home and in only six weeks whereas traditional education takes years. Yo u h av e k i d s g o f r o m b e i n g a skateboarder to welder in six weeks? Absolutely. In weeks three, four, five and six, welding, finishing and grinding core units are covered in unison with skateboarding skills workshops. At the end of the six weeks the student makes their own steel kicker which allows us to assess their skills and return them to their village with their kicker, skateboard and all their welding gear. What happens next? An assessment is done of the home environment to make sure all is safe for the child to return. Moving forward as we get multiple students being returned home to the same village. We check what previous students have made and rather than a kicker, the next student makes a corner transition that bolts onto the previous child’s kicker. This way tiny metal skateparks pop up all over Ethiopia and the stock of Skateboardinghums through the villages connecting children with a stable future. What does all this achieve? A six week course in metal fabrication does not make you an expert but it gets you off the streets and that our goal. It gives you a basic income for you and your family and the ability to do more training in Trade education and Traditional education. It creates a functional Ethiopian youth who has a skill and the tools to create an income stream for himself and his family as well as his a pride and a life and a future. For more information, please visit skateworks-project.org.