In Münster, we have been conducting pedagogically supervised skateboarding workshops for many years now and have introduced a regular offering at the Skaters Palace in Münster as part of the "Across the Bo(a)rders" workshop series. Especially children and teenager with a migration background can experience an age-appropriate activity through the workshops. With exercises, among other things, for group strengthening, strengthening of intrinsic motivation and self-determined learning, safe handling of the skateboard and the automatic learning of the German language, the project is very popular with the kids and they’re always full of enthusiasm and commitment.
“SKATEPARK IN A BOX” - CONTAINER PROJECT ACROSS THE BO(A)RDERS
In 2021, the "Stiftung RTL-Wir helfen Kindern e.V.", with the support of actor Wotan Wilke Möhring as project sponsor at the RTL-Spendenmarathon, granted us a project that involves setting up mobile skate parks at five locations in NRW and offering regular skateboarding workshops there for a year, including an extra vacation program. A total of four containers have already been set up:
The first location was opened on the Kölnberg in Cologne-Meschenich, one of Cologne's biggest social hotspots, with no existing facilities for children and young people. Kids can borrow skateboards and safety gear two days a week at the container and skate and have fun together with the skate-aid coaches.
Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. The area was hit hard by the flood disaster in 2021. A skate park is to be built here in 2023 and we want to cover the interim period with the container.
Other locations were already being explored, but current developments have led us to select the remaining locations based on a different criterion: Where can we currently support refugee children and young people from Ukraine? Two containers have already been set up for this purpose:
At Berlin-Tegel Airport. Currently, the airport, which was closed in 2020, functions as the largest arrival center for refugees in Germany. Regular skateboarding has been taking place here since November 2022.
Near a refugee camp in Balti/Moldova. Some 380,000 refugees who have entered Moldova since the start of the war pose an enormous challenge given the country's population of nearly 2.6 million, in addition to the overall threat level. The refugee camp was set up on site by the association "Die AHRche e.V." and handed over to the local administration. We want to cooperate closely with the local responsible persons here.
Usually, coaches instructed by skate-aid have started the pedagogical program with the s-t up containers and are already training local coaches. They took over in October 2022 and are running the project on site independently with the support of skate-aid. The coaches can conduct 3 workshops per day with 20-25 children each. Thus, at full capacity, 75 children per day and up to 375 children per week can participate. Further container locations are already in planning.
