<p><a href="https://www.pushingboarders.com/" target="_blank">Pushing Boarders</a><em>&nbsp;</em>took place over the course of three days<em>&nbsp;</em>and had over 1,300 people sign up for panels and Q&amp;As on topics ranging from urban planning, race and gender-identity, to the skate charity movement, with 200–300 people packed into each session and many more unable to get a seat. Unlike most global skate events, the focus of Pushing Boarders wasn’t on the industry or brand posturing, but instead on the essence of skateboarding itself, and its ability to bring like-minded people together to celebrate positive disruption. Speakers included legendary pros and pioneers Elissa Steamer, Jaime Reyes, Lucy Adams and Karl Watson, as well as leading skate-focused academics Iain Borden and Ocean Howell.</p>

<p>For Skateistan, it was an unmissable opportunity to meet so many of the founders and volunteers of community skateboarding projects face-to-face — a rare chance to share knowledge and learn from others — culminating in an epic skate session at Southbank.</p>

<p>The Pushing Boarders event made it clear that the power of skateboarding to create social change is exceptional, but there’s still a lot of untapped potential. The accessibility of skating and the pure fun of it can be used as a tool to help address issues like gender inequality, refugee integration, access to education and more. The reality, however, is that most skate-based social projects do a lot with limited resources, and we feel we have the potential to help make those journeys easier by sharing the knowledge and experience of our team.</p>

<p>If you are part of a social skateboarding project do the survey now and share it with others:<a href="http://www.skateistan.org/survey" target="_blank">&nbsp;www.skateistan.org/survey</a>. The survey deadline is June 30, 2018! The survey is open to anyone involved at any level in a skateboarding-for-good initiative, and the combined results will be shared publicly, providing insightful data to demonstrate the reach and influence of our projects around the world.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.goodpush.org/about-us" target="_blank">The Goodpush Alliance</a> is supported by a WeWork Creator Award that Skateistan won in 2017 so that we can scale up our impact and collaborate with social skateboarding projects around the world.</p>
