‘We teach children from poor places, and we teach them how to skateboard’

This new generation of Afghan girls learn together about their true potential and power in ever dangerous, unstable and sexist society. Carol Dysinger’s 40-minute-long documentary is an eye-opener to all who believe a skateboard is just a useless wooden toy.

We soon understand that skateboarding is not only a form of escapism for these girls but a striking symbol for modern female empowerment.

A group of girls anxiously clasp their skateboards as they watch their female teacher effortlessly fly around the indoor skate facility and school in Kabul. This is their version of a superhero, one that flies above wooden ramps instead of skyscrapers. There is a shared silence between the girls amongst the screeches of urethane wheels and thuds against the ramps, their temporary future and their new lives.

This is their version of a superhero, one that flies above wooden ramps instead of skyscrapers.

The students range from six to 17 and all have differing backgrounds and situations; some having sold selling tea and chewing gum on the perilous streets skateboarding has become their new calling and opening in a society that strongly believes females should not partake in skateboarding.

Skateistan is an NGO established in 2007 by Australian Skateboarder Oliver Percovich. Throughout the years of relentless hard work Skateistan has successfully combined a free education and skateboarding programme for those who have limited or restricted access. Through honest interviews with the girls it becomes evident that this is the first time they have been able to feel free.

Through honest interviews with the girls it becomes evident that this is the first time they have been able to feel free.

Most students have a similar history of being forced to stay homebound to wash clothes or look after male siblings (“I don’t want to grow up, so I can skate forever” one tells us). The infectious desire of learning and perfecting a craft is immediate as the girls step on the board for the first time.  These first steps you get to watch and be a part of are gorgeously captured in the film: footage of the girls falling, laughing and learning together warm the heart and soul from inside out.

Many of the lessons are about courage and self-worth in the classroom alongside reading and writing. These classroom scenes are uplifting and help the viewer to grasp that it’s not only the skateboarding changing the girls, it’s the new environment they are in. Although the school is safe the outside world is just as complex as learning a new trick for them, tales of car bombings and Taliban home invasions are relayed by some of the girl’s families.

As the camera team enter the homes of the skateboarders they are welcomed by the large welcoming Afghan families, it is in these homes that you can see that changes are being made, from the girls not being allowed out of their homes to now cruising the concave slopes of the skatepark – a mammoth step in the right direction.

Lesson by lesson the girls start to acquire the skills to skate, although they may have looked delicate in the early stages of learning how to push its blinding obvious that these girls are tougher than we could ever imagine. Learning to Skateboard in Warzone doesn’t fall into the tired conventions of forced tear jerking scenes; it simplistically presents progress and change in a city of chaos.