Skate board on ground with mountains in the background
Skate board on ground with mountains in the background
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Skateboarding as a tool for Social Change in Indigenous Communities

Ali Dawbney
Jun, 2021
4 mins

Based in the Sea-to-Sky corridor — the backyard to our Whistler office — the Indigenous Life Sport Academy is on a mission to break down barriers-to-entry and make unstructured sport accessible to Indigenous and in-care youth.

 

Based in the Sea-to-Sky corridor — the backyard to our Whistler office — the Indigenous Life Sport Academy is on a mission to break down barriers-to-entry and make unstructured sport accessible to Indigenous and in-care youth. While most sports organizations in the Sea to Sky centre around performance, ILSA breaks the mould by hosting participation-focussed programmes in outdoor sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, mountain biking and climbing. The emphasis is on learning and developing skills, while enjoying the company of friends and peers from similar backgrounds. Using this approach, ILSA creates healthy sport-based outlets to assist in the relief of conscious and subconscious stresses induced by intergenerational trauma within Indigenous communities.

Through this collaborative video project, we worked with ILSA to fulfil their goal of showcasing their Free Skate campaign, which collects new and lightly-used skateboards and distributes them to local youth for free. ILSA also hopes to grow awareness of their work, while encouraging parents and guardians of Sea-to-Sky youth as well as the youth themselves to sign up for the programmes.

ILSA is going from strength to strength. They recently raised $10, 000 through their Skateboard Art Auction Project and are now pushing to raise funds for their Charitable Status application. To find out more about their programmes and to learn how you can donate or get involved, you can visit their website here .