Charlie Davis, founder of the non-profit charity SkatePAL, discusses his mission of building self-sustaining skateboarding parks in Palestine, and how the sport transcends barriers between class, race, age and gender.
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Introducing Charlie Davis, not the cruise missile liberal always carrying water for Benjamin Netanyahu and Ayman al-Zawahiri on the Syria war, if you're thinking of that.
This is Charlie Davis from SkatePal.
That's SkatePal.co.uk.
And that's short for Skate Palestine.
Welcome to the show, Charlie.
How are you doing?
Hi, Scott.
Everything's fine.
How's the sound?
Can you hear me?
Yeah, you're all right.
Hey, listen, what a great project you have here, spreading the love of skateboarding in Palestine.
If ever there were some people who needed the freedom of skateboarding, it would be the Palestinians, if you asked me.
But then again, skateboarding is kind of how I define freedom in the first place.
Tell us all about this project, how you got invested in it, interested in it, what gave you the idea, who all you're working with.
Tell us everything about it.
So basically, after I finished school like 10 years ago, I went out as a volunteer teaching English in the West Bank, Palestine, in a town called Jenin in the north.
And after the classes, I would take my skateboard out in the street and the kids were all mesmerized because they'd never seen a skateboard.
They were asking me if I had a magnet in my shoes and a magnet on the board so it would stay in my feet as I ollied over things, you know.
And so the kids were obviously like really stoked on seeing this new sport.
I'll come back with a whole lot of boards and build a ramp and see how it goes.
So I started contacting some of the local youth centers and organizations to see who'd be interested.
And I found one in Ramallah, which is kind of the de facto capital of Palestine now.
And we started off with a really small three-foot wooden mini ramp and had classes for like eight weeks in the summer of 2013.
And after that, obviously, more kids saw it.
So other groups saw it.
And then we ended up working with a bigger NGO.
And then last year, we got a deal with the council in a village who gave us a plot of land to build a 600-square-meter concrete skate park.
So really, every year, we're getting a bit bigger and the more kids are getting involved and a lot more volunteers are coming from all over the world.
And it's just great to see how excited all the kids are seeing a sport which they've never seen before.
And it takes me back to when I first started skating.
And the best days is when I was going on the board, couldn't do any tricks, but could just about do an ollie or a shovel.
And that's the kind of level of excitement that you see in these kids.
Yeah, that's awesome, man.
And again, everybody, the website is skatepal.co.uk.
And what a bunch of great pictures of these kids.
And I can tell there's a couple of these kids that actually have some talent.
And that's all it takes, right?
For two of them to be the local skateboard hero for the others to look up to.
And this thing can really take off, right?
Exactly, Scott.
So basically, our mission in Palestine is to not exist anymore.
And I see ourselves pulling out as an NGO in two to three years after things are sustainable enough that the scene can keep on going on its own and it doesn't rely on us bringing people over and sending volunteers.
But like you say, the kids are picking up really quickly.
And they've started teaching each other.
And already we've seen kids in different towns network through skateboarding to meet up and skate together.
Unlike anywhere in the world.
It's just such a fun, great, interactive sport that brings people together.
There's no, like, I'm better than you, he's better than me.
It's really a community.
And you can see that firsthand how much the community is growing on the ground there.
Yeah, absolutely.
We are all brothers and sisters too.
Exactly.
Skateboarders of the world.
Well, what a great project.
Okay, so now what about Southern California?
Are they helping you out?
The companies are getting involved with this or not?
Well, we have, like, over the past couple of years, we've been getting a sort of skateboards, some skate equipment from different people all over the world, some skate companies, some skate shops.
But ideally in the future, we're looking for, like, a bigger sort of regular sponsorship from someone.
And so what we're doing at the moment is we've just launched a wheel with SML Wheels.
So that will be like our first sort of collaboration with a skate company.
And we're hoping that, like, through this, we can then start hopefully to generate a bit more income so we can afford to get the boards out there.
And then the aim is that ideally someone in Palestine would want to start, like, a skate shop and be able to import some of the things and, like, start selling boards on their own to get things going.
But it's really hard to get stuff, to ship stuff into the West Bank.
You have to go through, like, Israeli tax customs and then through the Palestinian tax.
And it's all a bit of a – it's quite a lot of work to do.
So, yeah, we take donations from here and there.
And, like, a lot of people all over the world, like in the States, in Europe, in Britain, have, like, gotten in touch and, like, sent us stuff.
So, I mean, it's great, all the support that we've got in the past two or three years.
Well, and people need to understand, too, if they don't, that Palestine isn't just a land.
It's a land under occupation.
And since 1967, the West Bank has been occupied by the Israeli military.
They have no vote, no rights really whatsoever.
Their government is, you know, basically the prison guards who work for the Israelis.
They're not answerable to the – the Palestinian Authority is not answerable to the people of Palestine, only to the Israeli occupation government.
And they live under what is equal to or worse or, you know, certainly comparable to the South African apartheid system that was finally overthrown really by world boycott back in the 1980s.
And that's the situation these kids are in.
So, if every kid in the world deserves a skateboard so they can know what it's like to be free, then these kids deserve it more than anyone else.
Yeah, you're right completely.
I mean, there's not – like, this is one of the first things that I saw when I was out there, was that there wasn't a lot for these kids to do.
Like, they were just, like, hanging around on the street.
And obviously, life under occupation is not a picnic.
It's like, you can't travel, you can't do this.
Like, it's a very difficult existence.
Obviously, as a charity, we have to stay apolitical and a-religious.
But obviously, everyone can understand that if you live in an occupied territory, things are going to be bad.
And, like, the economy is not going to be great.
Opportunities aren't there.
And so that's why things like skateboarding, it can be, like, a really good way to get kids engaged.
And, like, it can channel their energies into something positive and constructive.
I mean, even – in fact, I'm from Scotland.
And even in Scotland, in the past, like, five, ten years, the councils have seen the effect that, like, skateboarding has in, like, a village.
If you go and build a skate park in, like, a village, obviously crime goes down, the kids get involved.
And, I mean, all over the world, I think we've seen more and more organizations that are building parks everywhere.
And people are seeing that skateboarding, it doesn't just have this sort of counterculture vibe, which it still has in a way, but also it's becoming a bit more accepted, as people see it for all the good that it brings out in young people who otherwise wouldn't have access to any sort of opportunities or any hope in, like, in businesses, you know?
Yeah.
Or have an opportunity to prove to themselves how good they can be, you know?
That's the thing about skateboarding is the pride of accomplishment when you progress.
That's the key to the whole deal.
Well, and the brotherhood, of course.
I think that's exactly right.
You see people that skate, you see someone, like, falling on the ground, they get up and do it again and fall on the ground again and again.
And there's not really anything else in life that people fall on their face on the concrete and say, hmm, I think I'll try that again.
And so you see people that skate and skate, it just, like, it builds your own character and confidence as well.
And one of the nice, one of the best moments we had in Palestine was on our second part build.
And during the construction, we had some problems with the Christian kids and the Muslim kids, like, having arguments and fighting together.
And as soon as the skate park got built and they were skating, they weren't fighting anymore.
They were, like, skating together or, like, teaching each other.
And the parents said, this is, like, the first time that we've seen these kids playing together and not having a fight.
And there's not many things such as skateboarding that would have such an effect on kids, which is fantastic to see.
Yeah.
And again, you know, kids who are basically born as ghosts with no real hope or nothing to really be happy about at all, maybe, other than just, you know, their relationship with their closest family members.
But other than that, they can look forward to being, you know, hauled off and put in an Israeli military jail by the time they're 11, you know, or God knows what.
So, you know, couldn't be more important than it is for these kids, I imagine.
And now, I'm sorry, so three skate parks and you're working on more so far?
Is that it?
Yeah, so we, well, the last one we did was actually our fourth construction.
Because we had one, we did our first two in Ramallah, but it was more kind of, it was actually a bit of wood.
It was more to kind of, like, build it to see how it would go.
And after we saw there was enough interest and the kids were up for it, then we built our first concrete park in 2014.
And then we built our second concrete park in Asira, which is, like, next to the town of Nablus last year, 2015.
And at the moment, we're planning to go back and build again next year.
We have a few different locations, so we're still having a think and speaking to people to decide which one will be the best for everyone.
We're pretty much 100% going to be building one again next year, in addition to continuing our classes in the country.
Great.
All right, so now tell us all about how people can help.
Because what if somebody listening thought to themselves that they would like to send a giant box full of skateboards or trucks or wheels or bearings or hardware?
Well, we are always, like, we always greatly appreciate any donation, be it skate equipment or, like, a donation, a financial donation or anything, no matter how small.
And if you have got skate equipment to donate, the best thing to do is to email us at info at skatepal.co.uk, and we'll tell you the best place to send that stuff in the UK so we can give it to our volunteers to take it out into the West Bank.
Also, if you go to our website, skatepal.co.uk, you can find information about our upcoming projects.
Get in touch again, info at skatepal.co.uk, if you're interested in coming out to be a volunteer.
We have, at the moment, we've got volunteers going from the start of March to the end of October, and we're planning to have the same next year.
So we do placements of one month or eight weeks.
So any information or if you have any skate equipment that you want to donate, just give us an email at info at skatepal.co.uk, and that would be great.
Awesome.
All right, and, yeah, everybody, check out the website at skatepal.co.uk.
All kinds of great pictures of the parks, of the kids having a great time, all links at the top for all the information that you need to participate and donate and everything that you can do.
So please do.
Thank you so much, Charlie, for coming on the show.
I really appreciate this.
Thanks, Scott.
It's been great.
All right, so that is Charlie Davis from skatepal.co.uk, skatepal.co.uk.
Go there and help.
Hey, you own a business?
Maybe we should consider advertising on the show.
See if we can make a little bit of money.
My email address is scott at scotthorton.org.
Mike Swanson can help.
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