We’re a bit late on this – it has been a hectic couple of years! – but here we are with our new blog to keep you up-to-date on our work in Athens.
So I guess we should start from the beginning…
Free Movement was founded by Will Ascott and Ruby Mateja (that’s me) almost exactly two years ago. Will and I met in Palestine in October 2016 whilst volunteering for SkatePal. It was there that we saw the incredible affects that skateboarding can have, not just for the young people we were teaching, but for the community as a whole. It has given them something different to focus on; a challenging and creative new skill to take their minds off of the situation they are faced with. SkatePal pretty much created the skateboarding culture in Palestine, (when they started teaching lessons there were only a few local skaters in the whole of the West Bank) and have now built three incredible skateparks that host hundreds of kids every week. A typical afternoon at one of their skateparks will see excitable kids flying around the park, generally being fearless and unstoppable, whilst their parents socialising, smoking shisha, drinking tea, sharing food. All this whilst the blistering sun sets over the hills in the distance. The kids skate till after dark, supported by the team of international volunteers there to teach and inspire them – then you all pile into cars and go on to drink more tea at one of the local family homes.
After the month we spent volunteering in Palestine, Will headed straight to Athens to volunteer for Khora Community Centre, where he was helping to provide meals for displaced refugees and asylum seekers living in Athens. Within a week of being there Will called me to say that this had to be the place we set up a project – we had spoken in Palestine about establishing something similar to SkatePal, thinking of the many places that would also benefit from a similar model. He told me that in most cases on the mainland, emergency needs were being met – but there were still thousands of kids there who needed a fun and creative outlet to channel their energies into. We started putting a plan together and with a bit of luck he found himself chopping vegetables in the Khora kitchen next to one of the founding members of the charity Help Refugees, Josie. She asked Will what his plans in Athens were and so he mentioned his aspiration to set up a skateboarding project for refugees. Josie was intrigued by the idea and told him to write up a proper plan and get back to her. This is when Will contacted me and we started to gather research in order to formulate a written proposal.
The situation in Athens is very varied, there are people living in housing centres, squats, camps, dotted all over the city and often at quite a distance away from Athens. We knew our project had to be mobile so that we could reach out to various locations, and especially to the refugee camps which suffer due to their distance from Athens. We decided to buy a second-hand van which was big enough to fit a portable skatepark and all our safety equipment and skateboards into the back. This way we could have maximum outreach.
Just a few months later and we were packing up our van (Renault Master if you’re interested, very sporty) with a load of second-hand and donated skateboards and heading out to Athens. En route, we stopped at a couple of places in Italy to run skate workshops with some organisations working with refugees. This was a nice tester for us, and they went down really well so we ended up leaving some equipment for the passionate skaters to continue. Things were going really well until we fell into some unexpected trouble in Rome. Our van was broken into! The window was smashed and they managed to take most of my clothes and a load of other stuff. Luckily our sporty van held out, despite them cutting through the lock in the back, they still didn’t manage to get in. So all our skate equipment was safe and we continued our journey – a little bit hardened – to Athens.
Our first month in Athens we spent establishing relationships with other projects working with refugees in various contexts. We gained advice and made partnerships that enabled us to start teaching in refugee camps and in public spaces in the city. From the outset we made sure we promoted skateboarding as a gender-neutral activity – something that anyone can take part in, regardless of gender, age, race, nationality, religion. This is why it’s super important to have a mixed team of instructors – a lot of the kids we teach are from Middle Eastern backgrounds and they may never have heard of skateboarding before – therefore, we are the first impression they get. We can use this to our advantage though, following in the footsteps of the incredible charity Skateistan, we learnt that – somehow – skateboarding has managed to slip through the net in these cultures, allowing girls and women to participate whereas they are usually dissuaded from taking part in any physical activities, especially as they grow older.
Taking part in regular exercise can do so much for your self-esteem and confidence. As well as improving overall fitness, skateboarding is beneficial because it fosters an ethos of resilience. Those who skate know how many times you will fail and slam on the cold ground before finally learning a new trick; this resilience can filter into other parts of your life and be so empowering. As one of our students would say, ‘if you don’t fall, you didn’t learn’. I’m certainly a lot more confident since learning to skate – in a way it makes you feel untouchable. Even more than this, and crucially for the kids we teach, skateboarding ties you into a broader community where all boundaries seem to dissolve and it enables you to meet like-minded people wherever you go. We are constantly working to make more connections within the European skate scene, ensuring that the kids we teach are welcomed into their new community if they are relocated down the line. It’s an easy way to make friends in an unfamiliar place.
I promise the next post will be shorter… But let me just leave you with where we’re at right now.
We’ve been in Athens for just over a year and a half, (it has been a massive learning curve and we couldn’t have done it without the amazing projects we work with) and our current schedule is very busy; teaching nine skateboarding workshops every week in various locations as well as our new Women’s Programme in partnership with Women Skate the World. We’re incredibly proud that our sessions host a diverse mixture of people, with 45% female participation overall, sixteen different nationalities (on last count), and ages ranging from 6 to well over 30! We employ four local Greek instructors and our current mission is to expand our team in order to reach out to more refugee camps that are suffering from a lack of services due to their distance from the city.
If you’d like to support us in this mission then head to our donate page or get in touch!
