All of us are affected to some degree by the current coronavirus pandemic. Most of our regular skateboarding-based programs have been put on hold, we’re unsure about how to keep staff and volunteers involved, postponing events, and concerned about fundraising. And amidst all of this, we are trying to adapt to stay connected to our communities and children or youth that we work with. This is a situation that we have never encountered before, and we are all facing it together.

We wanted to take this unique chance to organize informal webinars for the global Goodpush community – to invite you to talk about your current challenges and how you are finding ways to respond to this new reality. See the recordings and recaps below!

You canregister to join future webinars here.

Webinar #1: Coping with COVID (April 16)

The Goodpush Alliance hosted a COVID-19 Sharing Webinar with more than 40 staff from 25+ social skateboarding projects to discuss and share on how everyone is coping with the coronavirus crisis globally. Special guests were Skateistan's Programs Officer in northern Afghanistan, Noorzai Ibrahimi, and Skateistan South Africa Country Manager, Mbali Mthethwa. We had an awesome discussion and there were some great ideas for collaboration. Here’s some of the key takeaways:

• The importance of our staff and volunteers looking after their own wellbeing before focusing on supporting their participants.
• That many of our projects provide valuable social connection and roll models for kids that we serve, even when our usual skateboarding programs can’t happen.
• While different contexts affect how we can adapt our programs (for example the level of internet access participants have) we also share many common challenges and solutions.
• These unique circumstances have made many social skate project more open and available for collaboration, since – for the first time – this is just as easy to do across distances as it is within our own cities, and we will be able to adapt our programs more quickly if we work together.

You can watch the recording below!

Webinar #2: Adapting Skate Programs to COVID (April 30)

We heard from guest speakers Kristin Ebeling (Skate Like a Girl) and Talia Kaufman (Skateistan), who talked a bit about their ideas for adapting skate programs for new social-distancing and hygiene rules post-lockdown. There were over 50 people in attendance, representing social skateboarding projects from all around the world.

You can read some of the ideas that came up on this Jamboard, and you can watch the Webinar recording below:

Webinar #3: Mutual Aid (May 14)

The suggested topic was: Mutual Aid – within this group, and within our local communities. How can we share our resources/knowledge to help each other out during these times?

Our special guest was Will Ascott, co-founder of Free Movement

You can watch the Webinar recording below:

Webinar #4: Curriculum in COVID (June 4)

The topic was: Curriculum in COVID – Both IRL social distancing skate curriculum AND digital curriculum (screen and non-screen)

We talked about how we can work together and combine efforts, plus best ways for sharing curriculum!

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS:

• Francisco Vinho, founder, Maputo Skate (Mozambique)
• Nanja van Rijsse, co-founder, Women Skate the World (Netherlands)
• Matthew Ratliff, Skatepark Director, The Bay (USA)

Webinar #5: Fundraising (June 25)

The topic was: Fundraising for social skate projects

This super informative session featured Skateistan's Development Director Felix Spowage, who covered:

• Fundraising basics for social skate projects
• Diversifying income, fundraising plans and reaching out
• Fundraising and COVID19
• Tricks and tips
• Q&A

You can watch the Webinar recording below:

Webinar #6: Anti-Racism (August 20)

The topic was: Anti-racism in social skate projects.

We shared we've been doing in support of Black Lives Matters and against structural oppression, as well as ideas for actions and next steps we can take together. Recording is below!

SPECIAL GUESTS:

• Sandy Alibo, Founder, Surf Ghana
• Mbali Mthethwa, General Manager, Skateistan South Africa
• Talia Kaufman, Programs Director, Skateistan

Webinar #7: Anti-Racism Follow-up (24 September)

The topic was: Follow-Up on Anti-Racism Action by Social Skateboarding Projects

For this Goodpush webinar, we tried a bit of a different format and split into smaller breakout groups to share and come up with ideas for Anti-Racism action and greater inclusion at 3 different levels:

Our programs Our organizational structures The wider non-profit sector and skate industry

We then came back together to share takeaways and come up with some joint actions we can take to fight structural racism within our skate projects and communities.

If you want to keep updated on future webinars and events, sign up for our Goodpush Newsletter here!