SKATEQILYA
SkateQilya is a youth empowerment program using skateboarding and art to teach community building and leadership skills to Palestinian girls and boys in the West Bank.
While skateboarding is the container for the program, SkateQilya’s workshops, centered around values of mutual respect, trust, and shared responsibility, also include photography and video, conversational English, and community building and leadership training.
SkateQilya, a US 501c(3) not-for-profit, is the first co-ed athletic program in the northern West Bank.
When you are on a skateboard and you get speed, and go faster, you feel the air in yourself.It makes me feel free…it makes me fly.”
– Hind | Age 16 | SkateQilya Student
HISTORY
SkateQilya began in 2016 when Adam and Mohammed, his co-producer and partner in their featured documentary film QALQILYA, partnered with former US pro skater Kenny Reed to create a summer camp for girls and boys in the city of Qalqilya. After building the skate ramp in 2013, and witnessing the challenges that the nascent skate community they were filming was having integrating with the local community, Adam, Mohammed, and Kenny felt that what was missing was programming.
After the success of their first summer camp, SkateQilya has grown into a year-round program serving children from cities and villages around the northern West Bank. In 2017 they partnered with UK based charity, SkatePal, to build a full concrete skatepark in the nearby village of Jayyous.
Whether it is on a skateboard or in a classroom, SkateQilya’s programming emphasizes peer-to-peer learning so that the relationship between student and teacher becomes integrated, creating a model for self-sustainable community building.
WHY SKATEBOARDING?
Skateboarding is an incredible vehicle for discovering self-expression, confidence, belonging and leadership. Like other alternative sports, it is flexible to interpretation and does not promote “winning” as a priority. Any skater around the world can explain how a skateboard changes a person’s perception of their environment. In a place like Palestine, this sport and art form takes on a whole new meaning.
PRESS
