The love of skateboarding and rollerblading is bringing together youngsters from very different backgrounds in Beirut.
Located in Beirut’s biggest park, Snoubar Skatepark, built 2 years ago in Horsh Beirut, is on the green line that once split the capital in two during the civil war, as it continues to demarcate neighborhoods to date. The skatepark is the fruit of a collaboration between several associations. It was built in July 2021 by the German NGO Make Life Skate Life, with the support of Fondation Decathlon, CHPO Brand and Air France, as Arc-en-Ciel, and the Beirut municipality have facilitated its management. The NGO Just Childhood is providing free skateboarding courses there.
However, well beyond Snoubar, skaters are making their own rules on the streets of Beirut, more particularly at a space they have now made their own in Downtown Beirut.
Karam Saad is one of the figures thanks to whom the skate scene in Lebanon came to life.
This is a report about a liberating urban practice that is bringing youth looking for meaning in a crisis-ridden country closer together.
