The Story Of Ethiopia's New Skate Scene | SKATE TALES Ep 4

welcome to ethiopia the urban safari rastafari i'm matters apps and i'm on a mission to explore skateboarding's outside edge hop in as we travel the globe meeting skateboarding's mavericks to find out what skating means to them the lion of judah just got to ethiopia one of the oldest countries in the world second most populated country in africa and guess what there's a skate scene out here these guys from ethiopia skate they're hooking it up build some skate parks around here jo [Music] ethiopia skate was born in 2013 at the sarbet parking lot in arizaba they worked to empower youth in ethiopia by providing access to skate equipment and creating skate spots their community consists of over 150 skateboarders in ethiopia's capital and other small towns across the country with many more eager to join in april 2016 they teamed up with make life skate life and a team of over 60 volunteer skatepark builders and skaters from around the world to build ethiopia's first and only free of charge public skate park the ideas skate park more recently in november 2017 they built ethiopia's second free of charge community skate park the hawasa skate park ethiopia escape house let's check it out what i live with babu hanok yabi origin charlotte and sean where are you from i'm from california what are you doing in ethiopia i just just met these guys like like six years ago and pretty much stayed most of the time and then trying to help them like get the whole skate thing going trying to make more skate spots and create more opportunity through skateboarding awesome yeah right ethiopia skate is basically an unprofitable organization we're working out here to more grow after skateboarding and at the same time empowering the use empowering the use through skateboarding a discomfort bro i'm fired the kids are doing really well living in this gay house and i think that it's a great opportunity for them to see more of the world in a better light and maybe it'll give them more opportunity to grow and have that same life for themselves trying to get a permit to skate here let's try to hit the streets of ethiopia [Music] so [Music] we started skating together every sunday at the parking lot in sarbat we used to skate in the parking lot with all the struggles of uh local bullies coming and taking away boats from little kids um but that was kind of our spot that's where we started [Music] you know this is the founding skate spot this is where ethiopia started skating from scratch you know since 2012 that was the first day i skated with these dudes we had the first skate competition here and that was um we brought one quarter pipe made of bamboo we brought a rail we brought um and like one kicker i think you know what i'm saying that's all we needed to have a skate competition [Music] so the first time i came to ethiopia was in 2011 and i was doing projects for a non-profit i was dealing with health issues in the countryside and then randomly met these kids skating on the street there's like maybe 20 of them sharing five boards i was like taking pictures of them skating and they were like why don't you help us make a skatepark because we really need it i don't know at that that day i actually like canceled my flight and i just stayed for six more months we made a collaboration with the german skatepark building company called make life skate life and we did an online fundraiser and after that it was easy we got about 60 volunteers for more than 20 countries we all lived in the same kind of big house and uh in 16 days we built around a 600 square meter concrete skatepark a first skate park in ethiopia skate park is fire i remember five six years ago nobody knew what a skate park was now little kids are growing up you know having access to skate parks coming and seeing skateboarding so you know that's how it's been going on we share boards with each other we are a family and this is like our home [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] first ethiopian hip-hop video with skateboarding in it [Music] is the organization that started skateboarding in ethiopia so a lot of people recognize it as the company that actually promoted skateboarding actually after we built the skatepark then people are like yeah okay now we see like it's actually a sport through this five years progress like we become more accomplished and then the community more known about like what skateboarding means so yeah it's that's better right now i'm happy about it it's 7 00 am and it's time to go on a road trip we got a five hour drive ahead of us not much sunlight and these guys still drinking coffee dude [Music] it's time to leave addis and go to awasa on the way we're going to stop by shasha mane for a little visit hasheman is the delegated land for all black people of the world and hailey selassie was the first leader in ethiopia that said all black people of the world i will give you this land come back and the first one is to respond where the caribbean community so yeah there's a big community of rastafarians there he wasn't just a king he was just also a father to the whole of africa so because of his appreciation of those african descendants from the diaspora all over the world he decided to give a land grant a gift to these people when you meet the real rasta you will know him by his movement by his thought base whatever he transcend raster see christ in [Music] is it cool growing up in a beautiful place like this or would you rather be in some other african country in hawasa just spent the night in a campsite by the lake there's a bunch of monkeys around here in the morning oh my god [Music] in ethiopia the coffee ritual is a vital part of their culture we're about to have some breakfast they got avocado eggs and food they cook it up however you like it street style [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] just got to the skate park that was built two years ago by this guy yeah so my first trip to ethiopia was in 2016. and then uh a year later sean hit me up asking me if i wanted to come out to help build a park and it was here in owasa and uh we had 15 16 volunteers it was like a 30-day thing 14-hour days building this skate park and like no real idea of what we were building but it was just like everyone coming together trying to collaborate to build whatever we could for the kids to skate you know our guy there jimmy carlos he he has a small taekwondo dojo and because of that he's really respected in that youth center skateboarding here so ground roots the way i described it at one point is like this is like a dog town era of skateboarding here it's like but no one's seen any magazines no one has any real knowledge of pro skateboarders or maneuvers to me that's what brought keeps bringing me back is like being able to see the growth of the kids and being able to just see the smiles on their face when you can bring them something that they don't have access to get and when they get a new board just going to push them further there's about like 20 boards over here that need to be upgraded because they're already skated down worn down in ethiopia it's not easy to get boards so we brought some we're setting them up and then [Music] [Applause] that's how they call the boards here it's just to carry around products from shop to shop switch this to this give me this or can i have that this goes on my wall back home here comes the rain baby we have a such a cool group of friends here and we're we're able to do so much with so little and it's just it's fun to be part of that to see the impact like right away i think we can really make some changes for the better back home i would be working or i'd be working i'd be thinking about myself if i was back home and hanging out with friends and stuff right here we were part of something [Applause] we came to hawaza another little town skated a skatepark gave away some boards and now beautiful lake hopefully we'll see some wildlife [Music] anyone that comes into the country is bringing boards there's no skate shops there's no skateboard distributor that is bringing stuff here there's no there's no opportunity for any skate goods here to be bought there you go there you go enjoy skateboarding be happy and skateboarding here's something that keeps kids out of trouble and they they're able to just kind of get together from kids from all backgrounds or skating together here it's bridging gaps in ethiopia and outside too because now these kids know people from so many different countries and they're inspired to like learn more english so that they can communicate with skaters and there's so many ways where it's positive skateboarding creates community that otherwise wouldn't exist and like and friendships that wouldn't exist a lot of people want to support but they don't skateboard so they want to buy a product that they could hang up on the wall and remember us by and especially because it's made of our own skateboards in some way like we're trying to bring the skateboards in into the business so like that way everybody can benefit and get a little bit cash in their pocket instead of just carrying the wood on this little car we're gonna get a pickup truck so that's the first mission of the day so like the option is like the track is not here so like we're gonna take another track randomly anyone here look nice feel down so they have like a lot of buildings like shops so we're gonna get wood you see a lot of collectives growing everywhere in the world like artistically and all of them become one of their entity but together also one entity and that makes them stronger and they uh blossom together you know so ethiopia is everybody everybody with their own thing and also as a collective like maintaining a narrative of like a skateboarding culture yeah promoting a creative world in general there's so much that hasn't been done and uh it's pretty cool to be able to make an influence somewhere where everything's already kind of happened in back home so it's cool to be able to be part of something like going from the ground up and if we can give the youth more opportunity and more say in what happens i think that it could be a better future for everybody that's it yeah perfect oh yeah but in azaba the growth is so rapid in the city that we're trying to empower the kids to have access to learning stuff that's going to help them make it in that world they don't have the skills to make money to perpetuate this like the lifestyle they want to live and i think that's what ethiopia sk is doing is empowering the kids to make it further in life [Music] three hours building this thing so now we're skating [Music] finally i want to see the kids get somewhere whether it's the olympics or through skateboarding just including the artistic thing that they're trying to do on the side too and your skate would have a lot of skateboarders under it and will keep on spreading the sport [Music] and it's gonna be time [Music] you gotta believe man what does skateboarding feel skateboarding is everything for me that's a freedom basically like i love it i think pretty much everyone probably said skateboarding is freedom to them but but i think that might be the answer you know like riding on a skateboard is one thing but it's for me it's more about what i build around it like what do i use using that infrastructure like the sport is already attractive which is a privilege by itself it's very easy to lure someone into skateboarding so that creates like connections networking a lot of people start being interested in you so using those net tools i i just want to make sure that what i'm building around it just holds the skateboarding together and you know like it becomes a big thing so that's what skateboarding is for me what can i say the ethiopia escape crew is skateboarding at its most fundamental a group of skaters from around the world hook up in ethiopia and help establish the birth of a scene through skateparks later something is blooming here in a country where life is tough but the passion for skateboarding is maybe stronger than anywhere else i've been community man it's all about community until next time thank you for watching the show click here to subscribe to the channel for more episodes and you can watch them all on redbull tv right there

Channel: Red Bull Skateboarding

Views: 545,225

Keywords: red bull skate, skateboarding, skate, skate videos, skateboard, skater, skateboard tricks, ethiopia, skatepark, africa, madars apse, jt rhoades, skate tales, bam margera, sergio yuppie, dan mancina, thrasher, berrics, tony hawk, pro skater, travel, skate scene, culture, story, documentary, skateboarder, learn to skate

Id: GKK10ehflr8

Length: 21min 3sec (1263 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 06 2020