Skateistan partners with local groups that work with young people. The park is on the grounds of the group known as PSE, where children attend school and learn a trade. There are almost one hundred twenty participants. Many come from troubled lives.
Sean Burke says for some, skateboarding is a chance just to be a kid for a couple of hours a week. He says he hopes the program will help them build life skills through sport.
Seventeen-year-old Sang Rotha is a student at PSE. "Sometimes I don't do well on topics like math," he says. "I feel bad when I find it hard to keep up with my lessons. So that's why I skateboard, to improve my bad feelings."
He says he began skateboarding more than a year ago. Before he started training, it seemed very easy. But it was very difficult to learn tricks, and he got hurt a lot from falling off.
Rory Burke says learning to deal with the difficulties is part of the lesson for these young skateboarders.
RORY BURKE: "You know, it’s pretty daunting to get on a skateboard for the first time. And then when they drop in for the first time and ride some of the ramps, it's pretty scary. It kind of teaches them, 'Hey, you’re going to fall down a bunch, but you’ve got to get back up.'"
Skateistan Cambodia plans to open the country’s first public skate park later this year in Phnom Penh.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, online at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Fritzi Bodenheimer.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
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2013-11-25