Feidippidou 25A
15344 Athens
Greece
- Youth and education
We are a small organisation consisting of four employees and dedicated volunteer instructors. Our annual budget is approximately 70k euros, made possible through various funding, including from key partners like THE SKATEROOM and Choose Love. Our mission revolved around using skateboarding as a powerful tool for positive change for youth. Our trusty van houses our mobile skatepark, carrying essential equipment to deliver free, accessible and inclusive skateboarding sessions throughout the Athens municipality. These sessions are open to all Athenian youth, but we prioritise underserved neighbourhoods with diverse communities. We aim to provide opportunities for youth to build skills, foster community and break down barriers. We believe skateboarding can empower and unite, creating lasting impact.
Through skateboarding, Free Movement Skateboarding (FMS) supports the wellbeing, empowerment and social cohesion of youth in Athens, Greece. Together, on and off the board, we push for a welcoming and diverse Athenian skate scene and society.
FMS skateboarding sessions go beyond learning to skate and strive towards our three core values - wellbeing, empowerment and social cohesion - achieved through our skateboarding session delivery and wider youth development programming for socially excluded communities in Athens. With our mobile skatepark, we provide skateboarding in underserved communities by offering free of charge equipment and guidance, youth work discussions and an inclusive, welcoming and safe environment. We use a trauma informed approach to promote wellbeing through a yoga based warm up, whilst also encouraging youth to take a mindful approach to their skateboarding and the community around them. We empower all youth, with a focus on refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, girls and those with learning disabilities, by having them reflected in our coaching team as role models and discussing with them that if they can achieve on the board, they can achieve great things elsewhere. Social cohesion is achieved by creating the conditions for integration of diverse groups who wouldn't normally meet, sharing space in the skatepark and beyond. Long-term, this creates new connections from diverse participants in our sessions and the skate scene at large, giving youth the community they need to be empowered, healthy, active citizens, creating the changes they want to see in Athens.
Over the past year, we have been working with Concrete Jungle Foundation’s Edu-Skate Curriculum, a programme for youth personal development through skateboarding: going beyond skateboarding to empower youth with the tools to achieve and flourish, in order to be agents of change in their lives and communities through the Self-Determination Theory.
ince 2017, we have taught over 1100 sessions, with almost 3200 participants from our mobile skatepark. Of these, 39% are female and are from more than 62 different cultural backgrounds, all living in Athens.
FMS is designed to give access to the highest quality, sports based, trauma-informed youth work from trained professionals in the safest environment to marginalised youth. We meet the highest level of organisational competence and capacity as we are registered in both Greece as AMKE and the UK as a CIO under the Charity Commission, meeting the strict compliance regulations of both.
Our mobile skatepark gives crucial access to positive recreation to disadvantaged youth, allowing us to provide free equipment, trauma informed youth work and community building in a safe space. We deliver sessions in four different neighbourhoods throughout the week. This enables us to achieve three core aims:
1. Wellbeing: Skateboarding is mindful exercise, in which focus is necessary to learn new tricks, championing physical and mental health.
2. Empowerment: We create spaces in which women, people of colour, LGBTQI+ and other groups feel safe to develop their skills on and off the board.
3. Social Cohesion: Through the supportive, communal act of skateboarding, diverse youth share more than just space and build community.
Beyond public sessions, we implement an Edu-Skate curriculum, which teaches vital life skills to our participants, like persistence, respect, and courage.
We further help build and widen community by hosting events that brings the FMS community together with the wider local skate scene and others. Some smaller events are aimed at introducing new experiences and excitement to our participants.
Moreover, we are committed to advocacy work, continuously working to highlight and raise awareness about the challenges and realities faced by our community and the neighbourhoods we work in. This is an ongoing effort that highlights our dedication to making a lasting and meaningful impact.
FMS is well-positioned to contribute to the network in our country by offering expertise in community building and advocacy, we have a strong understanding of our communities and neighbourhoods challenges and realities. Our unique approach to addressing the issues we aim to combat provides an interesting perspective. We believe in the importance of knowledge exchange and collaboration in fostering opportunities to learn from one another's experiences, unique strategies, and in enhancing collective efforts.
We want to join the ALF network because we believe in shared values and objectives. We see an opportunity to exchange ideas, learn from the community, and actively contribute more to fostering inclusive and accepting societies, and combatting racism. ALF offers a platform for collaboration, amplifying our impact in pursuing our aims.