Mobile skate tour downtown a hit with kids

Friday's first day of the Jamaica Skate Culture Foundation's (JSCF) Germaican Skate Tour on Water Lane, downtown Kingston, was a hit with the many children who attended and got a chance to put on the various pieces of safety gear and enjoy the skateboarding experience.

The children were also introduced to street art painting as part of the overall activity at the mobile skate park. The tour continued yesterday with additional activities.

Most of the children at the skate park showed from the nearby communities of Southside, Tel-A-Viv, Waltham Park and Trench Town. Yesterday's activities catered mainly to children from Tivoli Gardens and other inner-city communities around the area.

Remy Walter, president of the JSCF and organiser of the Germaican Skate Tour - which will eventually travel across the island in 2026 - was pleased with the turnout and children's response. He has high expectations for the sport in Jamaica and thinks if it is taken seriously the country could one day produce an Olympian skateboarder.

The French and the German ambassador joined yesterday's activities on stage around 1:30 p.m. with Dr Kevin Brown, president, University of Technology, and discussed their contribution to the programme. France finances the mobile skate park, Germany is financing the tour, and UTech, since August, assembled the skate park with the German (manufacturer).

He intends to eventually build small skate parks in the Corporate Area and across the island, to grow the sport.

"So we have a hub now in Kingston because we strongly believe with one million people that they need one or even two or three good skate parks for all the communities," he said.

"So our project is to try to get the funds to make a skate park in Kingston, but also in MoBay, in Ochi, in all these big towns. But also you can make small ones, like very small, a few like 20 metres, like a few square metres, and you can bring them in different communities, like Tivoli, Trench Town and they will have a little skate park to train and then they will come to the bigger one," added Walter.

He said newcomers to the sport are welcomed at any time, especially during the tour.

"If you want to try skateboarding and you are in between five years old and 55 or more and you really want to jump on the skateboard, we can help you to do it properly because we have teachers and there's a little bit of technique to know," Walter said. "...We're here to promote skateboarding, so anybody who want to know more about what we do, about skateboarding or to try skateboarding, they are welcome."

The JSCF, a registered charity, was founded in 2020 and seeks to use skateboarding and urban culture as tools for youth development, education, inclusion, and violence prevention.