<p><em>Building friendships through skateboarding at 7Hills park in Amman.</em></p>

<p><strong>SkateQilya, Palestine</strong></p>

<p>In July,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.skateqilya.org/">SkateQilya&nbsp;</a>held their third annual summer camp for Palestinian children, this time at the Jayyous skatepark that they built last year together with SkatePal. I joined for the first week of their month-long camp, in which they combined skate lessons with life skills, meditation and media training. During this time, I took part in the camp activities and ran some workshops for SkateQilya’s founders (Moh, Adam and Kenny) and 10 youth counsellors on managing skateboard sessions and child protection.</p>

<p>It was amazing to see the SkateQilya team integrate some of the lessons into their camp right away. Everyone was really excited to learn about new activities for the skate sessions and built the skate games from our training into the summer camp. One major highlight was the SkateQilya counsellors taking initiative to run their own workshops about child protection and skatepark safety with the 65 girls and boys attending the summer camp.</p>

<p>One of SkateQilya’s founders said: “The workshops with our counsellors were incredibly empowering for them because it both identified them as leaders while also providing them essential and interactive tools in helping them empower the students.”</p>
