“Skateistan, an innovative NGO in Kabul founded to empower Afghan children (and especially young girls), teaches children to skateboard as a gateway to get them more involved in education. In a tribute to these children’s struggles, UK-based photographer Jessica Fulford-Dobson created a photo series portraying the girls learning to skateboard at the NGO’s branch in Kabul (it has since spread to Cambodia and South Africa).
In many Afghan communities, it is customary to forbid women from riding bicycles. Skateboarding, then, becomes an empowering activity that gives these girls a source of physical exercise, empowerment, and some plain and simple fun.”
Sent in by Anonymous
https://www.boredpanda.com/skateistan-skateboarding-girls-afghanistan-jessica-fulford-dobson/
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
interesting the contrast between left & right hands.
No matter what too many people think they "know" young Afghan girls like those shown in these wonderful photos just want what so many young girls around the world want. I've seen photos and interviews with time worn Afghan fathers expressing their fervent hope that their children, particularly their daughters, get an education as that is their way to a good life. Does it not move the heart of anyone hearing this as these people literally risk their lives in the midst of opposing forces for the simple right to attend a rudimentary school?
To see smiles and the empowerment they develop in such a violent place is heartwarming. How helpless I feel as I believe their dreams will be crushed once again as the world's attention fades.
Children are our most precious resource…all the world's children.
Leslie in NJ
a little bit more on the above initiative
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-16/finding-way-be-strong-skateistan
http://skateistan.org/