Learning Through Skateboarding
Janwaar Castle in India’s first rural skatepark built in 2015 in Janwaar, Madhya Pradesh, in a country still trying to catch up with the west in skateboarding as a sport and a way of life.As an outlet from the conventional schooling system, we provide for the children an environment of self learning and team building along with community consciousness while encouraging their education simultaneously.
At Janwaar Castle we follow a strict policy of “No school, No skating” which ensures that all children at the skatepark regularly attend school. This has resulted in an increase in attendance rates of the students along with a more enthusiastic and positive outlook overall.Within 6 months of self training the children have accepted the Janwaar Castle skatepark as their second home and have honed the skills of professional skaters without any external help. In this manner we aim to create an impact in the lives of these children which will provide them with the discretion to take control of their life and their decisions and provide for them vast exposure.
We believe, that the village of Janwaar has the capability to evolve as a community around the skatepark to something much bigger through the passion of these children who we are empowering and now possess the power to shape their own future.
Paving The Way For A Brighter Future
What we aim to do at Janwaar Castle is to bridge a gap between the conventional system of learning and having fun, thus creating an environment for the children that combines the two. This brings them to a platform of learning out of their own interests and beyond the school syllabus.
We believe Janwaar Castle has already established itself as that platform. The principal of the local government school has told us that the kids are coming now more frequently to school, that their awareness and responsiveness has been increased and that they have become much more self-confident.
Creating Our Change
Janwaar Castle is much more than just a skatepark. We inoculcate moral values such as sharing, equality between the girls and boys, cleanliness and awareness in the children at a very early age. This is a very crucial part of the project. All our activities are based upon interaction and include collaboration and co-creation. Self-learning plays a very important role in this concept. And it works! In no time (five month actually) many of the children became outstanding skateboarders and they've stared to speak English. They are not afraid interacting with foreigners and they are very happy to challenge themselves in various tasks and to take responsibility such as taking care of our first aid box or the skateboarding equipment and other things. We don’t have fixed goals and clearly defined outcomes – we all act within a given framework which respects our common values. The skatepark is open 24/7 - everyone can simply come and join. Besides these “uncontrolled" activities we are running a diverse range of workshops – from learning English to building a playground.
About Me
I have been living in the rural parts of India since almost 4 years now – I come and go, but most of my time I spent there. I love it – for me rural India and to drive change there is very much like the Internet: uncertain strong dynamics, highly complex and many connectivity points where people join or sepearte. Many layers, hardly any patterns. In all the activities I’ve in my life I always believed in the concept of real participation (democracy) and shareable outcome for everyone (benefit for all). No matter if I worked for clients in Europe, US, China or India – no matter if these were businesses or institutions. And all my own projects followed this concept of “We” – that’s how I call it.
I am a native German but I’ve travelled a lot; I’ve been to more than 120 countries on this planet and I think the reason why I got stuck in India is exactly what I was trying to describe above. There are so many issues you can work on, so many problems which need to be solved – and I see a great chance to do this with the Internet and network structures – with the concept of “We."
Learn More
Visit our website.
Follow us on Facebook.