a post card from japan to uganda…

HI Jack and all the guundis!! greetings to everyone, i love you all and miss you! i know you are skating good and getting better!! i pray that you get donations to construct another park and teach more youth to skate!

Skate nunji nyoo!

Pink Paper Bag Man

ps, to everyone who sees this blog, if you like what these guys are doing send them a donation, even anything small will help!! honestly, if lots of people take the time to make even a small donation, a big impact can happen!!

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photo: Tojo

FUN AT WEEKEND MINI COMPETITION!

On saturday the 1st of march 2008 the Uganda skateboard union carried out a mini competition and the skaters had enough fun . as thet ground the boards . it was so interesting that it a made a good entertainment for the community .

view some of the stunts that made the evening .especially from the tenage girls . Kemberly and Sasta who emerged winners on drawing points.

Help Us Expand!

Our first park was completed over a year ago.  It has been a great success, lots of kids have been learning to skate, all of them are improving, and loving it more than ever.  We now want to spread skateboarding to a new community in the country, to share it with more kids.

We are looking for donations to help us buy land and materials to make this happen.  If you like what we have done with our first park, please support us in building a new one.  As with our first park we are relying solely on private donations, so any amount will help!

Please click here for information on how to help.

Video Preview Now (Finally!) Available Online!!

Our video is still not complete! (brian is SLOW) but a preview is now uploaded online on current tv’s website! please check it out at:

http://current.com/items/88840051_uganda_skateboard_union_s_video_preview

or if that doesn’t work go to www.current.com and type uganda skateboard into the search option

Birdhouse and the Tony Hawk Foundation Support! and Tax News…

We are very happy to say that Birdhouse Skateboards has agreed to send us equipment for our skaters on an ongoing basis!   We would like to thank John Krieger very much for his help to make this happen.  The word is that a shipment is on it’s way soon and we are very happy to receive the help!  Also the Tony Hawk Foundation is helping us out with a load of shoes via Audio to help protect the skaters feet.  Big thanks to Miki Vuckovich at the foundation for his work to make this possible.

This is great news for us as we were never able to achieve the tax exemption status that we had hoped for.  Our directors tried their best for over a year to make it happen but in the end there was too much bureaucracy in the way.  We are very grateful that Birdhouse is helping us with equipment and taxes.

Due to our tax problem we are unable to receive donations of equipment from all of the private individuals who had written us to offer boards.  This is a big let down as many generous individuals had been waiting patiently to send us gear.  We must thank you for your generosity and support and hope that you will still keep encouraging the growth of skateboarding in Uganda.

Ugandaskateboard end of year party celebrations!

The Uganda skateboard union made an end of year skate bash and the kids were at the park to display their best skills and all that they have managed to do in the year . it was fantastic and they really hard fun of their life cause skating went on up to late and they entered the new year skating. There was lots of fireworks and they made entertainment to the cloud that turned up in big numbers. Their funs cheered shouting” go skateboard Uganda mama nyabo!!!!!!!!” Have some of their wonderful displays below .

Uganda skate board union goes live on national TV.

The Uganda skateboard union on 5th of September received journalists from the national television Uganda broadcasting council and interviews were shown live on the national television. This was followed by journalists from the national paper The New vision , Uganda’s leading daily paper who also visited the union at their home skateboard park in Kitintale kampala uganda. and later in the week , the event was published in the national paper. This gave the skateboarders more courage in their struggle for popularity and recognition by the government .many people have now frequented the park and it has become a regular entertainment for the youth and the population at large . some of the photos taken earlier on can be viewed below.

Copenhagen Fundraiser Party

 

 Next week The Danish skatesite, skateboard.dk, is holding a party at the Copenhagen Skatepark to help support the Uganda Skateboard Union.  They are aiming to collect and raise funds to send all sorts of skategear; bolts, kingpins, saftey equipment, decks, trucks, and wheels out to the skaters via a Danish NGO that is operating in Uganda. Big thanks to Simon Bressendorff, Kim Moeller, Adam Grausen, Dan the Man, The Copenhagen Skatepark and Mads Matzon for putting this together.  Mads has been in contact with us for a long time now and his continued support is greatly appreciated.  It’s really rad to see international skaters like these guys donating time and energy into helping us out.  Webare nyo!! (thank you!!) Links: www.copenhagenskatepark.dk  www.skateboard.dk

Subvert Cuba Project wants to help out…

The following mail has come from the Subvert Cuba Project, please read it and if you have any answers for them they can be contacted at “ Lux {at} subvertskateboards (dot) com ”

Hello everybody.
I’m Lux from Germany, responsable for the SUBVERT CUBA PROJECT (http://www.subvertcubaproject.org)

We have many donations gathered here (see the pictures from february on our website). The Cuban skaters said, this would be much too much to send it at once to Havana, so we could easily send some of it to Uganda.

Only the shipping would be the problem. Does anyone know some help to get it from Europe (mustn’t be from Hamburg or Germany, where we are situated) down to Uganda.

Something else: we couldn’t send the gathered stuff to cuba yet, also due to the problem, that we couldn’t find an NGO to receive the donations taxfree. Does anyone know help for that? (se es nacesario, hablo tambien espanol (o italiano ou francais))

Greetings to all of you

Lux

Certificate received, now waiting for Ministry of Finance Tax Exemption

We have now received our NGO registration certificate, we are official!  We are proud of this as we have been working to get here since October 2006.  Big thanks to Jack, Moses, Brian, and all of our members who made this happen.

NOW we have taken the certificate to the Ministry of Finance and await their approval for tax exemption on donated goods.  It’s hard to say when this will be granted but we have been told roughly a month.  Cross your fingers and give us your prayers!