Some projects can create a surprisingly extensive ripple effect. They can inspire the creation of new projects or light a spark of curiosity within a single individual. In this case, the project that is causing the ripple effect is a group of guys in the city of Khan Younis, Gaza, who use parkour to find common ground and hope in an area of the world where that is exactly what is needed.

Vycheclav Guz
Who would ever think that one of the things you might end up seeing when walking around in Gaza is a bunch of young guys practicing parkour in the middle of the ruins. Well, if you happen to be in the city of Khan Younis, and you walk around when school is over, that is likely to happen. I had the great pleasure of interviewing one of the gents from PK Gaza, Ahmed Matar, to hear more about the organisation and their plans.

After the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip back in 2005, Captain Mohamed Algakhbeer and Abdallah Enshasy created the very first parkour crew in Gaza, a crew that’s now seen as the best parkour team in the Arab world. Back then, it was just the two of them, but steadily the numbers of member in the crew have grown and now they are up to 18 official members from age 17–25.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow…

Every day after school, they practice the sport that brings them together. But compared to most people practicing parkour, or any other sort of sport, they have to deal with a rather different problem. Besides the constant threat of bombs flying around, they can never be sure if the space where they trained the day before is still going to be there for the next practice. One day there’s a wall and a house to use for practicing, the next day there might just be a big crater in the ground. But this most certainly doesn’t stop them—on the contrary, according to crew member Ahmed Matar, parkour has brought meaning to his life, and hope to the people around him.

They might not have much, but what they do have is the choice to not let anyone take their dreams and goals away from them. By practicing parkour on a daily basis and doing shows for various audiences, they spread power in a way that no outside organization or person could ever do. Their way of interacting with their surrounding brings beauty to places that normally are seen as ruins.

One of their goals is to get a safe space to practice, as well as a space where they can teach youth about the sport and the mindset that comes with it.

Creating positive change

Right now they are in Gaza, but they would like leave the country as to be able to practice with people from other areas of the world, learn as much as possible and, most importantly, let people know what is going on in their area of the world. And if they can’t leave, they wish that others might come to them.

By shedding light on things other than the suffering taking place, Gaza Parkour wants to show the outside world that by doing good and by spreading hope, you become strong and you can create positive change. The people of Gaza do not let the bombs and the guns stop them from living their lives, it does not quiet down their spirit or strength, and it doesn’t stop them from developing and growing.

Yasser Fathi Qudih

Yasser Fathi Qudih

Yasser Fathi Qudih

Spreading the message

Since I got into contact with these lovely people, there have been several interviews and photo shoots posted with them online. So if you are curious to see and read more, below you find links to the ones that I’ve come across:

– The Telegraph
– Newsweek
– BuzzFeed News
– CBS News

Thank you to Yasser Fathi Quidh and Vycheclav Guz for being such amazing photographers and for letting me use your pictures, and to Mohammed Nabeil Amer, Gaza’s only B-Boy, for stepping in as a translator!

A few months ago, I was contacted by an organization called Women Engineers Pakistan, which introduces girls to the field of engineering and technology. Just reading the name made me curious. For those of you who don’t know, I’m an architect, and I come from a family full of engineers and tech-heads. In other words, my choice of becoming an architect has never, at any point of my life, ever been questioned. I went to a technical high school in Uppsala, Sweden, always with the support of mom and dad, brothers and sister, my grandmother, aunts, uncle and most of all my wonderful grandfather. With 26 boys and 5 girls in my class, the male-to-female ratio was rather high, but my knowledge and competence was never questioned by anyone of the male gender. Not by teachers, nor by fellow students.

Hearing about an organization like this and its origins was inspiring, and it takes more then a bit of willpower and skin on the nose (Swedish expression) to start something as groundbreaking and controversial in a country where female students are told that they should reconsider their choice to study engineering and start studying something more suitable for women…

In this interview, I’ve had the great pleasure of talking directly with Ramla Quershi, the co-founder of Women Engineers Pakistan. She recently moved to the U.S. to study engineering on a full Fullbright scholarship. So even though she’s busy with the big move and getting her bearings, she set aside some time for this interview. I hope you get as inspired by reading this as I did from writing it.

Core77: Tell us a bit about the organisation and the thoughts behind it.

Ramla Quershi: The organization is a budding startup, which looks to increase participation from Pakistani women in Pakistan in engineering. Women have always been by and large in domestic and agricultural jobs in Pakistan, and their participation in science and technology has been minimal. We realize that women make over half the Pakistani population and we’re working to prevent that potential talent for technical prowess from going to waste. We’re working with young girls at high schools to encourage them towards science and math

When did you start working on getting Women Engineers Pakistan up and running?

It started with a Facebook page last August. But it’s wasn’t until six months ago that we started working as an organization.

Why did you decide on starting WEP?

Throughout my engineering degree, I felt a nagging lack of women in this field. We were often discouraged by our professors that engineering is a ‘big boy’ area. It was disheartening to realize that there weren’t many role models set out for us. So I created this organization to give women engineers a platform to represent themselves.

When the professors talked about it being a “big boy” profession, how did your fellow male students react to those sort of comments?

My fellow males knew that I was good at my studies, so they would often turn up for a group study option and ask me to explain things to them. So they had found out that the women in their class were just as good (some even better) engineers. Barring a few, many were courteous and encouraging. However, there were some ‘go make a sandwich’ sort of comments—but not many.

There must have been many ideas/incentives to make it go from an concept into reality, what were they?

Oh yes, there were. Initially it was just a Facebook page, but then it started getting attention, and I realized that I had hit a niche. We were contacted by the U.S. Embassy through the Facebook page for meeting with a NASA engineer coming to Pakistan. And i thought, ‘Oh wow, not much representation for the women in engineering crowd.’

Being contacted by the U.S. Embassy and meeting an engineer from NASA is a rather big deal, what did you talk about?

So the NASA engineer was a very encouraging lady. She told us about the unmanned mission to Mars that she had been working on. She told us about the pressing need for women to participate in engineering. We also discussed the prospects for Pakistani women engineers in future.

What was the most inspiring part of her visit for you personally?

The fact that she had a focused goal, and that she kept working on it for so long to finally achieve it.

In which sections of your life are you implementing this philosophy?

In every part of it—work, education, personal life. I’ve realized that nothing worthwhile comes easy, you have to work tirelessly to achieve it. Which is why I have started a focused approach for the growth of my organization, Women Engineers Pakistan.

What are the plans for WEP in the near future?

That we start from school levels, then college and then target workplaces. I have learned that this change that I want cannot be brought about in just a couple of months. It wil take years, maybe decades, to set back this gender gap. And we’re going one step at a time.

Do you already have partner schools that wants to implement WEP into their curriculum?

No, not yet. The schooling system in Pakistan hasn’t changed much over the years. Devising the curriculum is much easier than actually implementing it. I have received both good and bad feedback from schools in Pakistan. The Gov’t Girls High school in Lahore has been most encouraging and have shown a lot of interest in the cause of promoting science and technology. I have gone to that school a couple of times and WEP will arrange a science competition for them next Spring term. However, curriculum changes are a huge challenge.

What is the biggest challenge when it comes to the curriculum?

This curriculum was set even before my parents went to school. So the education department is hesitant in changing it now. So I need help from the international community to set up a well-rounded curriculum with a special focus on the female audience to it.

Is WEP getting any help from bigger organizations as to make this happen?

For curriculum changes? No. But we’re getting a lot of help from organizations to set up events, set up promotion desks etc. The Mehran University of Engineering & Technology is one such example. They invited us over for sessions, they invited us as a guest speaker to seminars like Opportunity Deck for Women in Engineering, they have really helped us in spreading the cause.

You just got a scholarship as to study over in the U.S., tell us a bit about this.

Yes, I got a Fulbright scholarship to the U.S. It is a fully-funded one that enables me to do my best in education and at the same time be a part of creating a better impact in society. Fulbright scholarships are not easy to get, so there are a lot of expectations associated with the grantee once he or she scores one. I realize this is a golden opportunity for me to take my initiative for women engineers to the next level, forge contacts, raise internships, meet and invite new people to promote the cause, and I am trying to make the most of it.

What will you be studying?

I will be in U.S. for two years studying Structural Engineering with a focus on Performance-based design for earthquakes and other hazards.

Who runs WEP while you’re in the US?

I was hoping you would come to this. I have recruited Campus Ambassadors in major Engineering Universities in Pakistan. The role of these ambassadors is to carry forwad my work while I’m here. They will go to government schools for girls, they will go to colleges, they will arrange conferences in universities. I make the announcement for the selected candidates next week when session starts in Pakistan. Also, supervision is undertaken by Abdul Hadee Janjua, our co-founder. Rafay Qureshi keeps important contacts such as yourself in the loop. Ms. Sidra Kaleem works in Abu Dhabi for us, and she’s already doing a phenomenal job at representation for WEP at coferences there. She is trying to build a job market for Pakistani women engineers in the UAE.

Meanwhile, I am in constant virtual contact with everybody. Google hangouts, Skype and Facebook/Twitter are important in today’s digital age.

Is there anything else you wish i come to regarding questions..? ;-)

Yes. I am calling for international help here. We need growth. We need role models. We need jobs. Women in Pakistan are extremely talented. They are intelligent entities who are willful of changing the world for better. I call for global opportunities for these people. If someone feels they can help us in the tiniest possible way, let them not stay back. From science books to science fairs, anything and everything is welcome.

Do you have any Do’s and Don’t’s for girls and ladies who want to work within the field of technology and engineering?

Do:
– Step up
– Always be in learning mode
– Women generally are better multi taskers. Put this quality to good use.
– Repeat 1–3 daily.

Don’t:
– Give up.
– Settle for just anything. The world is huge. And anything will be yours if you keep trying your best
– Be scared of math/physics. Learn things the way you like, but maths is easy once you rid yourself of the fear of it.
– Think engineering is only for boys. An engineer uses his/her mind. So can you.

What do you mean by “Repeat 1-3 daily”?

That they should step up for a new thing daily. Enginerring is an art form in a logical format. Until women start putting their ideas into it, engineering will lack the diversity it needs.

Learn morning about Women Engineers Pakistan at their website, WomenEngineers.pk, Twitter (@women_engrs_pk) and Facebook.

It has already inspired a man in Norway to start a Lost & Found Oslo ;-)

(Published on core77.com 17th of July 2014)

For those of you who conduct interviews with a voice recorder, you know that the transcription is typically a slow step. If you’re lucky, the interviewee speaks slowly or spends a long time thinking before answering, and the transcription process only takes two or three rounds. This was not the case when it came to Natalia Ivanova: On the contrary, the words flow as quickly from her tongue as the movements that flow from her limbs. She has a fluidity and energy in her way of thinking that comes across in everything she does.

Ivanova is the founder of Hal X, a small indoor training hall for parkour in Copenhagen, and the coordinator of especially designed courses, where parkour is a force for positive change for youths.

Originally hailing from Russia, Ivanova speaks fondly about the memories she has of jumping from garage roof to garage roof in the oppressive heat during summers back home. She remembers how fun it was to run as fast as she possibly could, in bare feet on the burning hot rooftops. Jumping over the gaps between the buildings, she knew that one misstep could mean an unpleasant tumble into rubble that might contain rusty scraps of metal, crushed glass and used needles.

Needless to say, this love for exploring urban spaces and challenging herself with her surroundings has been the defining element of through life. As a child, the hijinks and hyperactivity were just called “fun”; now it’s called “parkour,” and it has spread around the globe with the help of aficionados and YouTube like wildfire.

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However, you may not realize that—beyond the physics-defying wow factor of the sport—parkour can serve as a positive alternative to destructive social cultures. In contrast to several other street activities, the philosophy behind Parkour is not only to challenge yourself and push boundaries, but to develop the best version of yourself. You have to have a totally clear mind if you want to be able to get the most out of your practice. That means little or no alcohol, drugs or cigarettes. If you are under any kind of influence, you risk not being able to judge distances properly and having a serious accident. “Alcohol and other substances are off the table since your mind has be clear and focused for practice.”

Observers who aren’t familiar with the sport and the philosophies behind it might see nothing more than loose-limbed young folks jumping from building to building, doing double backflips and hanging from rails, which might lead one to the conclusion that these people are more than a little bit crazy. But as with any sport, parkour practitioners—known as traceurs or traceuses—must train extensively, with utmost dedication, and exercise discipline on every level of their life in order to do what they do. You will never see a traceur leave empty bottles or discarded sandwich papers smeared in mayonnaise behind—they don’t want to mess up their surroundings, their space for practice.

Ivanova shines when she talks about space and her way of perceiving it; she revels in interesting angles on buildings and cherishes spaces that we walk past everyday and never really notice, where she can practice in for hours on end. She talks about an spot high-up on a building and how she wants to figure out a way to get up there. The city is her playground, and everything from a bench to a set of walls can capture her interest.

She has managed to incorporate this passion for Parkour and the underlying principles in a rather innovative way. In addition to being the woman behind Hal X, Ivanova is also teaching parkour in collaboration with various partners as a way to prevent vandalism in schools and to help kids with autism interact with one another and the world.

Before studying at Paul Petersen’s Physical Education Institute in Copenhagen, she was a social worker who specialized in physical education, helping kids with troubled backgrounds. Back then, she couldn’t help herself from using Parkour as a tool to bring out new sides in the kids she worked with, nor has she been able to help herself from doing it in various ways since. The difference between now and then is that Ivanova has learned that the various ways she was working with the students were grounded in theories such as ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ and the ‘SOS Method.’ This discovery not only confirmed that she was on the right track, it also gave her a basis to continue her work. She knew parkour was a good way to work with kids at a level on which she could truly reach them and now she could explain and make others understand why.

After Ivanova completed her studies, she could have just gone the safe route, becoming a conventional teacher who activates kids in various ways, but instead she chose to focus on parkour and let everything revolve and develop around that.

The success of Ivanova’s various projects has spread through word of mouth to the extent that she is typically working five to ten different projects at any given time. A few of these projects are in the development phase, some are being executed, and others, such as Hal X, are regular gigs. This means that she doesn’t really have to go out and find clients, but that the clients come to her with a problem and they figure out a way to reach the goal together.

One of these projects came to her by way of a Danish insurance company that was working with schools around the country. The goal with the project was to stem the vandalism of schools, which was costing them obscene amounts of money. They were looking to address the issue by introducing a new social trend in the schools, to make it uncool to deface the school grounds, and Ivanova was tasked with figuring how to do so.

Her solution was to present parkour in such a way that the students started to interpret everything in the schoolyard as a tool for practice. She challenged the students to figure out various ways to use the benches, the corners, the stairs and other areas of the school grounds for practice. This made them perceive space in a different way and ultimately think twice about smashing bottles and burning the bleachers, because if their activity space was littered with trash or smeared in grease, they could no longer be used for training.

Every new client brings new challenges, new possibilities and new knowledge to be acquired.

PART II

(Published on core77.com 18th of July 2014)

In part one of this two-part series, we introduced Natalia Ivanova, educator and founder of the Hal X parkour training center in Copenhagen; as a passionate traceuse, or parkour practitioner, she has long incorporated physical education into her work with children. Here is a more detailed outline of her method.

Implementation

Getting the kids involved and excited about a new project is normally never an issue—they are more than happy to get out of their routines and try something new. Seeing as this is the case with most projects, the challenge is to make the project become a part of the everyday culture, to ensure that the students continue to practice after the official project is over and Natalia and her crew leave the school. Unfortunately, she has yet to come up with an answer… so No, no formula to be found here. At least not yet.

(When working with co-creative processes at various schools, my colleague Heidi and I encountered the exactly same problem. No matter what approach we tried, we never really managed to implement the way of thinking and working we used when collaborating with the students and teachers in such a way that it became a part of their everyday culture.)

Breaking Down Borders

No matter how much we try to ignore it and think or act otherwise, the fact remains that we live in a system where the gaps between the various social classes are visible to the naked eye. Just as with other sports, parkour is a means of breaking down these imagined barriers and connecting people from various cultures and social groups

Parkour transcends these social borders by creating a common ground—wall, ledge or bench—for participants.

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The Best Version of Yourself

Some call it mindfulness, others meditation, parkour practitioners just seem to call it preparation. Cleaning the soles of your shoes, moving your neck from side to side, stepping inside of yourself while warming up your joints, jumping up and down, visualizing the site and its various possibilities.

While the general public may have the impression that people who do parkour are just mad, jumping between building and doing double backflips, many people don’t realize that traceurs practice year-round. No matter how dangerous a technique might look, they have no intention of pushing themselves so far that they get hurt. Injuries are inevitable in any sport, but with practice and incremental improvement, traceurs can keep the risk to a minimum. Another thing that doesn’t mesh with their way of living is a large consumption of alcohol and other nefarious substances. The potential harm to their only required tool—their body—is far too great to justify. The point is movement, after all.

One of the things Ivanova has pointed out many times throughout the interview is that “there is always something you can do.” If you can’t jump 1m, then jump 50cm, if you can’t do that then jump 30cm and if you can’t jump at all, then train your upper body.

Moreover, the mental strength that one builds through parkour may have a positive impact on other parts of his or her life. Benefits may include: the propensity to look at situations from different angles to find a way to get from A to B; the practice of challenging yourself and pushing your limits when you feel the time is right; the habit of seeing possibilities where other see nothing; and the method of supporting and encouraging peers through struggle and in victory.

The Community

As an outsider looking in, it’s impossible not to notice—and envy—the camaraderie between people practicing parkour. The smiles, the pat on shoulder, the shouts of encouragement and kudos, the curiosity when someone does a maneuvre that others have yet have to master, and how everyone gladly supports and teaches one another. There is no talk about gender, country, culture, age, education, background, language or social layers. And if you, like myself, am curious about what they are up to, they are more then happy to show you some techniques and just or just sit down and give you an insight to what they are up to and what it’s all about.

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The Next Generation

Outsiders look at parkour and assume that the sport is driven by a distinct lack of mental stability. Looking at some of the appalling videos you can find on YouTube, I don’t blame them. Some of the jumps and maneuvers you will see can make you hold your breath and make your heart skip a beat… or five. Yet the movements continue to evolve and some of the techniques that were earth-shattering a few years back are now seen as standard inventory.

The trend of filming more and more courageous and dangerous routes is cause for concern among some of the more experienced traceurs. They are worried that the new generation will forget the principles behind the sport, that which holds the community together and drives its progress. Principles such as ‘practice makes perfect,’ ‘warming up’, ‘mental awareness,’ ‘taking things at your own pace’ and ‘supporting one another through thick and thin.’

In an effort to prevent this you can now find videos showcasing the small things that make a big difference, such as simple, progressive warm-ups and mindful training.

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Questions? Comments?

Now that you have a sense of what parkour is about, we’re curious to hear what you think…
– What sort of social problems do you you encounter in your surrounding?
– Do you think parkour could be a way to solve these problems? If so: How?
– How do you create lasting change when a project is over?
– How do you suggest we create a stronger connection and bigger understanding between parkour practitioners and the general public?

 

Connecting through t-shirts

 

First friends:

Juliet – Copenhagen, Denmark

Bram – Copenhagen, Denmark

Lene – Copenhagen, Denmark

Rodolfo – Mexico

Giorgio – Reunion Island

Berit – Copenhagen

Reka – Copenhagen