wilmer difo – we build a skatepark we
called it John ba Castle building a
skatepark might seem like you know a
simple intervention but it quickly
turned out to be much much more
this skatepark has burst the village
into life it has broken taboos
it has break down barriers and it has
become a trigger for really sweeping
far-reaching change
so John voir like any other village in
India is strictly divided by costs in
changhua we have at one side we have the
other of the higher cost on the other
side we have the adivasi the outcast
there’s hardly any interaction between
them so it was a pretty natural process
that the first kids coming into the
skate park where dev and you know it all
but guaranteed that no other varsity
would show up but slowly it is changed
one day I came and I saw a little
adivasi boy sitting at the far end of
the skate park he was sitting there
watching the Yadav kids skateboarding
and he was just sitting there watching
them for hours endless for hours
it was completely in trance in what he
saw so but he wasn’t there to any to ask
any of these CRF kids you know they had
the skateboard over so next day he came
again but he showed up at the 3rd day I
walked over and I asked him if he wanted
to join so he looked at me you know he
nodded his smile he was really you know
his face was lifting up and he was you
know I will never ever forget this
burning longing in his eyes so I walked
down with him he had a boy not too happy
hand it over the skateboard and some
cash that’s his name
he took the skateboard he started
running he dropped the skateboard he
dropped it down
he jumped early it was just sailing away
today he’s one of our best skateboarders
he’s really like you know a ninja on
this board and from this day onwards he
would come every day and he would always
get a skateboard so the ice between the
cast finally broke one morning during
our yoga sessions we always start by
building a huge circle I call it gulab
on Ola so there was this little tight
tiny girl standing in the middle of the
circle adivasi girl it was dirty like
hell I mean just no one you know wanted
to go to her let alone you know touch
her so I made a move and all of a sudden
City one of our Yadav boys he joined me
and we both scrapped her hand
we included her in the circle and this
small very tiny momentous gesture was
very powerful she was included and from
this day onwards this issue of cost
never ever showed its ugly head again at
thank you so India has six hundred and
fifty thousand villages you have 700
million people living there it’s about
60 or 70 percent of your population they
most of these villagers they just you
know live above or below poverty line
their future is India’s future if India
does not succeed in uplifting these
villages India will collapse there are
so many government programs which are
addressing village issues billions
billions of dollars
but still these programs doesn’t work
the circumstances in most of the
villages are still not acceptable why is
this so I believe that the major reason
why this is so is that most of these
programs they have a clearly defined
outcome you know they are designed like
ready to make like ready to use products
they are they fail because they are for
the villagers or they were designed for
the villagers and not with the villagers
they fail because they are based upon
this distinction of those who know and
those who be taught we attend bar we
walk down a different road and this is
why the we comes in in the logo we do
believe that only when you put all
stakeholders of the village together
then you can drive not only trigger but
really drive sustainable change change
which is carried out by the villager
themselves because it’s them who has
initiated this so when I first came to
join bar I still remember it as it was
yesterday I know I had mixed emotions I
didn’t want to go out there why would I
seven kilometers out of Patna I mean
Panna is already at the end of the world
and then moving on another seven
kilometers it wasn’t really you know
inviting but when I arrived and I stood
at this small hill overlooking this one
point two acres of land which would
later become the skatepark
I instinctively knew that this was the
place I was really blown away by this by
this beauty of this spot it really holds
everything which became so close to my
heart over the last couple of
phears while I was riding or cruising
with my bullet bike through my tier
Pradesh it was you know there was this
beauty in there it was innocent it was
rough it was somehow wild and this is
where I felt I had found the place so
three months later we started
construction another three and a half
months later the skate park was built in
April last year we had the grand opening
which was nothing more but that I handed
over twenty skateboards to the kids and
I told them you have to share them and
you have you know take care of them
during the construction process
the villagers didn’t know what was going
on the kids were kind of curious they
came every day and when the force
strength was built
you know they simply used it as a slide
but I gave them these skateboards there
was no teacher there was no instructor
there it was all based upon you know the
principles of self learning and these
kids they really learned fast they
learnt surprisingly fast and you know it
was teams were built all of a sudden the
bigger ones were helping the smaller
ones the better skills were helping the
lesser skilled you saw these these are
much mounted principles of collaboration
and and co-creation
in practice practice by the children not
ordained from above and it really crew
all true all very very organically at
this Cape Park brought fun it really
fueled the kids with positive energy and
it gave them a lot of self-confidence
today I would say to my smiling jaanwar
is in a transformation mode the kids
they show their elders the way
you know of an alternative life life
their parents and their elders could
have never trimmed off or imagined the
kids are ready to take the future in
their own hands and they are ready to
build a brighter future for John Barr
I’ll give you two examples there is a
Shar
she’s a 16 year old Adivasi girl she
attended last year the summer camp we
did and she did impressively well in
English so I invited her to go to
England to teacher to learn better
it took me eight months to convince her
parents to let her go I brought in the
March of varna you know I put in the the
principal of the school I brought in her
teacher I was chasing her father’s for
the entire village on my poly bike I
went to see the mother in the heat of
the fields I was talking that they
wouldn’t let her go so and I thought you
know this is this is never ever going
anywhere but it was really assure
herself her persistence to say I want to
go that finally finally after eight
months and this was only six weeks ago
her parents agreed they let her go and
meanwhile we succeeded she has a
passport and the parents not only you
know decided to let her go which was a
big big thing in the sea in the village
they also gave me the promise whenever
she’s coming back when the father gave
me the high five he also promised me not
to marry her off but give her the
opportunity for a job maybe working for
us in turn bar the other example is
our ship watch is the thirteen-year-old
boy ah he did not very well at school he
finished in April it’s great
he could hardly read and write and you
know he just didn’t like school if you
see these government schools in the
village
you understand why I mean you can’t
blame him so but he did impressively
well at the skate park there he really
developed social skills he was actually
a natural-born leader and you know very
quiet in his practice so he wouldn’t
have the opportunity to go to a ninth
grade school because his parents don’t
have the money to send him off to a
partner they don’t even have the money
you know to pay this 10 would be bus
fare so it really looked like a sudden
end to a child just you know be cut off
when we got the opportunity to give a
first scholarship to him or to – and VAR
it was very easy for me to decide to
decide that it was him going so the only
problem was what to do sending him to a
ninth ninth class in some other kind of
what we would call better school doesn’t
make any sense because he simply was
lacking all the skills you would need to
do so so we designed together with a
school actually here noida the name is
poverty it’s based upon the same
principles like Chan Vikas Lee’s which
is all about experimenting and exploring
with them together we designed a
one-year program to start with where he
really learns what learning is all about
he just came back home he spent the
first six months in Delhi doesn’t like
city so much so he’s happy to be back in
John Barr but he has really somehow
understood that learning can be a good
thing or he has found the reason why he
would learn and all of a sudden this
started to write he’s now reading on a
Kindle and he’s really eager you know to
know more everything somehow what we do
at Dunbar castle has this smell off of
counterculture you know it doesn’t go
along with tradition it’s just like when
you look at skateboarding it it’s very
often looked upon as anti-establishment
hardly any rules or no rules at all yet
at Randwick hassel we decided right from
the beginning we do accept this
counterculture thing but we are also
very happy when the kids and everyone
who is going to join us at least accept
our two rules the first rule is no
school no skateboarding and the other
rule our second rule is girls first so
if a kid doesn’t go to school if a kid
doesn’t go to school it’s not allowed to
skateboard as a result immediately
school attendance went up so the guy
there in the blue t-shirts ap he never
went to school before but when he heard
this is actually one of our best
skateboarders not to say the best I
heard him saying wait I’m gonna beat
Appa in school attendance and sure
enough he is today he goes every day to
school and he’s not the only one I would
say probably 15 of our best
skateboarders they are at school more or
less every day another 10 or 15 drop in
more frequently so the entire atmosphere
in the school has changed the teachers
are very happy they say they use the
expression that finally these kids are
you know coming out of their shelves
motivation is at an all-time high and
they’re much they’re really eager to
learn now so it’s a kind of slow process
but we do believe and it’s a long
process but we do believe that we are on
the right track girls first is also
something I mean in this part of the
world where we are in girls have hardly
any rights so to talk with these people
about gender issues or a women
discrimination doesn’t make a lot of
sense so we decided to build this into
our daily practice so girls first it’s
very simple whenever a girl comes to the
skate park all she needs to say is girls
first
no matter how small the girl is or how
big the guy she would get the skateboard
and this is actually what everything is
all about by doing this by practicing
this this is slowly going to change
their behavior so these boys today they
are very much aware whatever we do they
say by themselves goals first so and
this will stay with them because they do
[Applause]
before before the skatepark was there
actually in the village they talked
already before the pre skateboarding
area and now so before the skatepark was
there the imaginate the imagination of
these kids never traveled beyond the
village borders the village borders were
really you know the mental borders of
these kids as well they didn’t know what
was going out on there it simply did not
exist for them today they became very
comfortable in approaching the unknown
they have learned where they come from
they have learned where they want to go
to and by doing so they became very very
proud of their village and to be proud
is is a very first step for village kid
you know that these kids will stay in
the villages some of them have applied
for passports they really welcome
visitors from all over the world they
enthusiastically interact with any kind
of foreigners coming in they explore
their own States they go to Delhi very
easily so they are really you know they
opened up and they really embrace the
unknown janma castle is still young we
only started a year and a half ago so
it’s far too early to draw any kind of
conclusion but what I surely can say is
that this model it has the power to
disrupt the village and disruption
itself is actually a very interesting
thing because on one hand you have this
excitement about the new on the other
hand your feeling you know a little
unsettled so Jan bar these days stoolie
kind out of balance you know Asha is
going to England instead of getting
married dpi and Goldie they compete with
the boys in skateboarding the boys are
telling their fathers to stop drinking
all these kind of things happening and
actually the best thing I like is that
once in a while
the Panna police guys come in and I mean
police is something in this part of the
world and our kids train them in
skateboarding so it’s reverse mentoring
where this new balance for Chunhua will
be I don’t know and I think I don’t need
to know because what we have started
with jeong-bok hassle is a very what I
call open process we trigger and then we
see where we go and I see my role
certainly not
you know as someone dictating them what
to do telling them what to do know my
role is rather being the observer and
when someone or family whatever if they
start to move you know
then we are very happy to help and guide
them in this new world in this unknown
world what they are entering you know
and ultimately help them to find this
new balance so my job is being
continuously you know to disrupt them to
shake them and help them to find this
new balance these villagers I would say
especially the kids they do now have a
dream for better future I would say they
have really stopped existing they
started living they have stopped
surviving they started thriving and very
often when I Drive down on my motorbike
these last four kilometers it
a long stretch off of the main road I
think about this African proverb which
we probably all know it says it takes a
village to raise a child
I believe in John ba we have created our
own version we say it takes the children
to transform a village thank you
[Applause] [Music]