Foreword

In 2009 we supported the skate-aid campaigner David Wichera during his gap year doing voluntary social work in the Imani orphanage in Nairobi. In addition to him, we also supported the local skating community and registered NGO "Skateboarding Society of Kenya" with donations in kind. In December 2010 the skate-aid operation for Kenya was to reach a new level.

Kenya is now the third country where we support the East African association (after Uganda and Tanzania). In November 2010 our Chairman and Project manager for Africa, Torben Oberhellmann, went to Nairobi for twelve days, where he conducted very successful talks with partners, architects and authorities. In addition he visited the Shangilia project and showed the kids the basics of skating.

The Situation

Around 60 % of the three million inhabitants of Nairobi live in slums; around 100,000 of them in Kangemi. There is no running water, electricity only seldom; the makeshift huts are knocked together out of corrugated iron and wood. When darkness falls, locals do well not to venture outside their four walls. Shootings, prostitution, muggings are routine during the night. Many inhabitants live in extremely bad conditions and even with full-time work can scarcely earn enough to feed their family. HIV is a serious problem in the slums. The number of carriers of the virus living in the slums lies between 50 % and 90 %.

The children suffer most of all. Many children run away from home. Initially they look for a "less bad life" living on the street. Reasons include violence in the family, parents who are sick, who are drug addicts or who have died. If they have a father, frequently he has abandoned the family and the mother is unable to feed the children, she works as prostitutes and/or sends the children to beg in the city.

skate-aid accomplishes

In August 2010 the Shangilia association contacted us and told us about its plans. Currently Shangilia is offering 199 street children a home in an orphanage, provides them with an education and a decent life. The orphanage is on the edge of Nairobi (Kenya) in the Kangemi slum. The aim is to carefully restore the children's self-esteem with acrobatics, music and sport.

But the need for places for children rejected by society is growing continuously. Therefore Shangilia started to build a new home with an integrated school in April 2011. The aid organisation "Cap Anamur" has already purchased the land. The German action group "Ein Herz für Kinder" will bear the costs for building the school.

Shangilia contacted us at skate-aid whether we could build a skate park for the children. In November 2010 Torben Oberhellmann, director of skate-aid and project manager for Africa, assessed the project and conducted all necessary talks. Now we are proud to be a partner of this scheme: our aim is to complete the first skate park in Kenya by the end of 2011. The park will be multifunctional, like all other facilities we have built. For example, a basketball pitch will adjoin the park.

In addition to the important work for the street kids, we can build on an important advantage, namely, that there is already a skating community in Nairobi. The "Skateboarding Society of Kenya“. We have been supporting the society since 2009 and the boys and girls have really got what it takes. Take a look at the video.

The local skaters are actively involved in planning the park with our architects in Germany. In addition they will take charge as skateboard trainers during sports lessons and in their leisure time. Also we have become affiliates of the "Youth 2 Youth" programme. This means that each user of the park has to become a member of the "Skateboarding Society of Kenya“, is given a free HIV test and can use other offers in the fields of music, culture or sport.