After 14 months of planning and fundraising, The Concrete Jungle Foundation (CJF) was all set to start work on its most ambitious project yet – Freedom Skatepark (Kingston, Jamaica’s first skatepark) – when Covid-19 hit. We caught up with Troy Björkman (CJF development director) for a chat about the Foundation and its work, what they look for in volunteers, how they managed to build a park under lockdown and how Covid-19 might affect the work of the charity skatepark sector in the future.
Interview: Kingsford
Photography: Stoefen (unless otherwise stated)
Tell us a little bit about your background and how youcame to be involved in the charity skatepark sector.
The four of us running CJF internationally are all skaters from different European countries with complementary backgrounds and skillsets. I’m a student of international development and e-business from Helsinki, Finland. I got in touch with CJF in 2017 while writing an extended research paper on skateboarding charity organisations from a business perspective. Upon graduation in January 2018 I flew down to Peru to volunteer with the crew and ultimately started working with CJF longer-term.
Harry (Gerrard) is a skatepark builder from Kent, UK. He was involved in numerous charity skatepark builds like Myanmar, Jordan, Palestine and Ethiopia to name a few, before CJF came into existence, and currently makes a living building skateparks professionally in Europe.
Clément(Taquet) is a designer from Belgium. He was working and living in Peru in 2017where he met Harry and ended up co-founding CJF. Our first skatepark was builtin the north of Peru in the city of Trujillo that same year.
Tim (van Asdonck) is a skateboarding teacher and youth development specialist from Utrecht, Netherlands. He had focused much of his graduate studies on looking at how skateboarding can stimulate personal development for underprivileged youth, so he joined CJF to develop the Edu-Skate Programme once the skatepark in Peru was completed.
Tell us more about CJF.
CJFis an organisation and network of skaters that do two main things: buildfree-of-charge concrete skateparks for underprivileged communities around theworld and provide skateboarding-based programming for children and youth atthese project locations. At the core of our work is the belief thatskateboarding can serve as an effective tool for personal and communitydevelopment, if done right. And that is the main mission of CJF: to plant thepositive seeds of skateboarding. Sustainability of the parks, programme andskate community is very much our focus, so we fundraise not only to build parksbut also to employ local skaters, run the youth programmes and organise eventsand contests at the parks. We do also rely on international volunteers both forour builds and helping out with running the youth programme at our projectlocations.
How do you choose a location for a new project?
Usuallywe have a few main criteria for starting a new project: there has to be a localskate or social organisation that is willing to partner with us for theproject, the local stakeholders should be able to secure the land independentlyand the proposed location must be in a socio-economically marginalised area.
How did the Freedom Skatepark project come about?
During our last build in Angola in December 2018 we were contacted by William Wilson, a British guy who had befriended the Jamaican skate community and was looking for a way to help get a park built for them. He had just started an organisation himself called Flipping Youth. They already had some potential local sponsors lined up and were looking for an organisation that could carry out the work and match the rest of the necessary funding. We started working together in early 2019 to see the project realised.
How did the funding process go for this park?
When we started working on the project, we committed to securing funding to match a 60,000 USD donation from two Caribbean companies (Seprod Foundation and Sandals Foundation). Over 14 months CJF and our supporters all over the world fundraised through hosting events, selling merchandise, and collecting individual and corporate donations. Big up to the Dutch CJF family, Radio Zaatari in London, Lisa Jacob in Paris, and especially The Skateroom in Belgium – this project wouldn’t have happened without your continued support!
How do you choose volunteers? Are there people whojoin you for every build?
Thingshave changed a bit over the years. During the first builds everyone that wantedcould basically come. Nowadays a maximum number is set, and the crew is chosenbased on two main criteria: skatepark construction / DIY experience and theirparticipation in helping us fundraise to make the project happen. Of course,word of mouth also plays a role.
We’vebuilt three parks so far: in Peru, Angola and now Jamaica. The only people thathave been at all three builds are Clément and Harry from CJF, but there aresome people that have been at two.
For those interested in volunteering, what skill levelis required?
There’s always a broad range of different construction skill levels on-site. Naturally we mainly look for people that have substantial experience in DIY or formal skatepark construction. But on the other side, we’ve had plenty of volunteers that have never worked with concrete before but have helped substantially during the preparatory stages of a project as well as during the build. What can you offer? If it’s not construction perhaps you can help the project in another way: organising fundraisers, hosting a contest, coming on as a photographer / videographer etc. It’s all about the passion, dedication and value the person brings to seeing the project realised. Get in touch and help out.
What are you doing to encourage diversity in volunteers and also end users of the parks?
While the skateparks we build are free of charge communityspaces open for everyone it is often the case that children and youth from moreprivileged backgrounds have it easier to make use of them.This can be dueto having access to transportation or having more leisure time, for example. Wecounteract this by providing our Edu-Skate Programme (including transportation)only to children who are from socio-economically marginalised backgrounds.
Whether or not to grant priority to volunteers for beingpart of a minority group is something we’ve discussed quite a bit internallywith CJF, but we haven’t yet reached an organisational policy as such. We dotry to get women involved as much as possible in order to support female skateboardingand skatepark building competence. For this project, for example, we had threewomen on board who had never built skate obstacles before. But at least so farthese decisions haven’t been made with a particular quota or anything likethat.
How do you involve local people in the buildingprocess?
Wealways involve the local skate community in the building process as we thinkit’s a great way to transfer skills to them. At the previous project thathappened naturally (as we were working with and living at a skater’s house).For Jamaica we actually took this to the next level by implementing a paidapprenticeship programme for the local skaters. This meant that throughout thebuild we had six local skaters that were getting paid while shadowing our professionalbuilders and learning all the stages of skatepark construction.
Do these people leave the build with enough skills to build new parks?
Iwould say that the beneficiaries of the apprenticeship programme leave withsolid introductory knowledge and experience of every step involved in theprocess, and they can definitely build proper DIY obstacles. That being said,learning how to build professional skateparks takes a lot of practice andexperience. We can show them the way, but they need to dedicate more time andpractice to master the art.
What safeguards are put in place to ensure the safetyof volunteers during the project?
Firstly,we always require all our volunteers to have travel insurance to join aproject. For the current project in Jamaica we also had insurance that coveredeveryone working on the construction site. In addition, we always set someground rules depending on the country and culture we’re working in. Things likenever go into the city alone after dark, no flashing valuables, etc.
How was it working with local authorities in Jamaica? Do you work with local people to guide you through planning procedures etc?
Social and work culture varies significantly between countries and continents, so we always work with local people we trust along the way. But that doesn’t always solve the issues though. For instance, Jamaica tends to move kind of slow in terms of authorities and formal applications. While the original plan was to receive our lease and building permit back in June 2019, our local partners (Seprod Foundation, Sandals Foundation and Tmrw. Tday) could only secure it while we were on the ground in February 2020. That was a big scare. We had all these people coming, project announced, but no certainty we would actually get to build.
What does a skatepark bring to a community beyond theobvious (a place for people who already skate to go)?
Researchhas established that skateparks and skateboarding promotes a wide range ofpositive life-skills such as confidence, goal setting, perseverance and socialrelatedness – especially for marginalised youth. Skateboarding is alsoinherently non-competitive and actually one of the most inclusive ‘sports’ inthe world, which in turn also promotes equality, a focus on self-improvement aswell as sound gender relations. And suchinfluences can be very important, especially in places where youth criminalityis high and liberal progressive ideals are not necessarily the norm.
Beyondthe normative, a well-organised skatepark also attracts youth engagement,ownership and agency in the community, serving as a platform where young peoplecan have a say and actively influence the development of something that isimportant to them. And as the first of its kind in the country, a skatepark canhave a notable commercial and cultural value over the long-term. While afree-of-charge community skatepark, The Freedom Skatepark will no doubt be thehub of skateboarding in Jamaica for the foreseeable future, serving as the sitefor competitions, events, skate schools and all other cultural-commercialactivities that typically surround skateboarding elsewhere.
You touched on this earlier. Can you talk more aboutwhat happens after you leave? How does the Foundation ensure the parks aremaintained, equipment is available and supervision and support is offered?
The completion of the skatepark is only the beginning of CJF’s work in Jamaica. Once the Covid-19 situation calms down and we can formally open the park, we will begin implementation of our Edu-Skate Programme, which involves teaching life-skills and skateboarding to 7-12-year olds as an after school programme. We are also in the process of employing local skaters to work as skatepark managers, Edu-Skate teachers, and multimedia managers at the park, so the skatepark will be taken care of properly for sure! For equipment, we’re working with a number of partners to have boards and safety gear available at the park as part of a loaning programme. Shout out to Donate for Skate, Skateboards for Hope, The Skateroom and Paris Skate Culture.
Asyou can see CJF doesn’t leave once our parks are completed. Instead, ourapproach is focused on sustainability to ensure functionality and a thrivingskateboarding community over a longer period of time. In the long-term, ourplan is always to give complete local ownership of the project and park over aperiod of 3-5 years, which then allows us to take on new projects.
The finished park looks great. Congratulations. Canyou talk us through the design process? How were local skaters involved in thisprocess?
Thanks!This definitely turned out to be our most ambitious project in terms of sizeand design. The park came out super flowy and way over the planned 1000m², so we are all beyond stoked. In fact, I justheard from our operations director Harry the true final size is roughly 1300m²!
In terms of process, Harry typically makes the first draft of the park design based on available resources, and then consults with the local skaters about their preferences. The preliminary design is then 3D rendered by our friends at New Line Skateparks from Canada, who have been helping us out since 2017. Thanks for your continued support guys.
But while we have a preliminary design when all volunteers arrive on-site, the final product always has modifications. The turtle in front of the bowl at the Freedom Skatepark for example. That wasn’t planned at all – Fia (Lund) and Bea (Palotie) from Finland just drew it up and asked: “Hey, how about something like this?”, and everyone was stoked on the idea. John (Seaman), Ben (Daeleman), and Sam (Van Lani) really put in the work to give life to the turtle in the end, much respect. So yeah, the process is definitely much more fluid and free than at a formal build.
Where were Kingston’s skaters skating before now? I saw a fun-looking DIY spot in Eli Reed’s Out There episode.
The Gully DIY! SK876 is the crew behind that spot. It’s sick. It was the only park-like spot with any street features on the whole island before we came down. Shout out to Ivah, Shama, Jeff and everyone else who have been building there the past few years.
Before we talk about Covid-19, I wanted to ask how therecent drought in Jamaica affected the project?
There’sbeen a severe drought throughout Jamaica for well over a year already, butthankfully we got away mostly unscathed. In the end of February we went a weekwithout water at the camp, but luckily the place has a big backup tank, so wewere privileged to have bucket showers for those days. For the actual build wegot lucky too, as the football club next to the construction site had access toan emergency tap that always flows. Farmers around the country have had ittough though, and it’s definitely had an impact on the country’s economy.
OK, on to Covid-19, which became a global pandemicduring the build. How did this affect the project?
Thewhole corona thing hit us like a brick in the face. The flight restrictionsstarted in early March, just when the volunteers were coming, so we had ahandful of people who couldn’t make it to Jamaica at all. As the pandemicspread people were also prompted to get home as soon as possible, so we lostover 10 international volunteers earlier than planned. All of this meant thatwe were fewer people on-site, which of course took its toll on the plannedschedule and progress. Super thankful that the flight cancellations didn’tstart two weeks earlier though – otherwise the project wouldn’t have happenedat all.
Thesecond thing that happened was that Eight Mile Bull Bay, the area in which thepark was being built and we are living, ended up being ground zero for COVID-19in Jamaica, so the whole neighbourhood was put on lockdown overnight. Therewere military police patrolling and guarding the neighbourhood for two weeks,and no one was supposed to go in or out. It was a tense 14 days of lockdown forsure, all the while we were working full days with not enough people to finishthe park.
The rule on construction work in the quarantined neighborhood wasunclear for everyone, so we gambled on it and just continued to work. The team was only going to be there forthose few weeks, so we had to get it done. We were lucky enough to not getpinched by the police. To be honest I think the local police looked throughtheir fingers because they knew what the situation was, and they knew we wereall working in a voluntary capacity.
What is the current situation there?
Covid-19is no longer only in our neighbourhood, so the area-specific lockdown has been lifted.Right now, there’s a curfew between 6pm and 6am throughout the whole country,and gatherings with over 10 people are banned. Pretty much all flights are alsocancelled. All volunteers were supposed to fly home by April 6, but there arestill four of them stuck on the island, plus the CJF crew.
So right now the park is finished, but not yet open tothe public?
Right.The park is done, but we haven’t been allowed to formally open it to the publicdue to the gathering restrictions.
Are people skating it at all?
A brand new park with a maximum of 10 people at the park at any time? You bet! All the locals that have been involved in the construction plus the few international volunteers still here are free to skate it until 6pm every day.
You mentioned in an email that work on the youthcentre next to the park is on hold. Do you have any idea when that may resume?
The youth centre is being built by Flipping Youth, one of our partner organisations for the project. They outsourced the work to a local construction company, which then paused the work due to Covid-19. It’s still unclear when they will resume working, but I would guess they’ll be done within a month or two. I’m sure they’ll be done before the formal opening at least.
Can you tell us more about the volunteers stuck inJamaica?
We’vebeen in touch with the embassies of all our volunteers since the flightrestrictions started back in March. Just a few days ago we finally got fourvolunteers home who were trying to get out for weeks. There is still oneCanadian, one Italian, one German and one French volunteer here whose ticketsgot cancelled but they seem pretty happy to be stuck here to be honest.
How are the remaining volunteers getting by and whereare they staying?
They’re doing fine although their planned expenses have certainly grown. Now that the park is done a number of our volunteers have struck a deal with Jamnesia Surf Camp (where we stayed during the build) to help with renovations and building in exchange for food and accommodation. Others are looking at getting an apartment.
How is CJF supporting them?
Wesupported all international volunteers for an extra week with food andaccommodation following the completion of the skatepark, but at this stage we’reout of budget. We do everything we can to facilitate a comfortable stay forthem and help out where we can with getting flights out, and we’ve beencommunicating with their embassies since the pandemic started.
How about yourself and your CJF colleagues? What isyour situation? Will you stay there to see the project through?
We’redoing well! The CJF crew will stay here until at least June, if not longer. Westill need to implement the youth programme with our local partners, and thathasn’t been possible as of yet due to the Covid-19 situation. That’s really themain part of our work, so we will stay as long as necessary to make sure we setup a solid structure here in Jamaica.
How do you see Covid-19 affecting the charity parkbuilding sector longer term?
I’m no expert, but I’d imagine that the predicted global economic recession that follows this pandemic will have a negative impact on fundraising opportunities for all charities. All those that enable this kind of work – be they governments, companies or individuals – are currently being financially strained, so this will undoubtedly affect their ability to support the work of non-profit organisations. Travel restrictions are another aspect that certainly has affected us already, but we hope those will be lifted soon so that we can resume our youth programmes at our project locations – and do more projects soon.
