Banned From driving Bikes, Skateboarding Afghan girls Shred Their approach to Empowerment

In 2007, Australian skateboarder Oliver Percovich traveled to Kabul, Afghanistan with skateboards in tow. Seeing the curious faces of Afghan kids—a lot of whom, in particular the ladies, were not allowed to ride bicycles—and their excitement to discover ways to skate gave Percovich the idea to start out Skateistan, an NGO initiative in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and South Africa that uses “skateboarding as a software for empowering formative years, to create new alternatives and the opportunity of alternate.” Skateistan, which has based itself as Afghanistan’s first skateboarding college, has received attention over the years, most particularly for its ever-rising body of feminine students.

U.okay. photographer Jessica Fulford-Dobson visited Skateistan in Kabul in 2012 and took a series of highly effective pictures of the younger girls who’ve discovered a brand new roughly freedom via skateboarding. Fulford-Dobson’s photographs are presently on display on the Saatchi Gallery in London, and he or she had this to assert concerning the exhibition and her experience working with Skateistan:

I met so many spectacular ladies and women in Afghanistan: a instructor as tricky and decided as any man; younger Afghans in their early twenties who had been volunteering at an orphanage and had been being considered as strong and willing to struggle for themselves, rather than as victims of circumstance; and ladies who were being educated to be leaders in their communities and who were already considering in moderation about their own and their u . s . a .’s future. and of course there have been the younger skate girls, so fun to be round and so absolutely unspoilt. i believe fortunate to have met them. i hope that this assortment captures something of their spirit: their joy in lifestyles, their individuality and their community.”

analyze more about Skateistan and Fulford-Dobson’s exhibition “Skate ladies of Kabul.”