Ghana’s First Skate Park Is About Much More Than Skateboarding
Surf Ghana / Sandy Alibo
You might not know it, but one of the most dynamic and radically adventurous skate scenes happening right now is in Ghana's capital, Accra. Nevertheless, the vitality of the country’s skate scene seems less a by-product of prosperity and more a willful, self-propelling act of determination.
Sandy Alibo founded the sports NGO and collective Surf Ghana with the dream to nurture and equip the striving local skate scene. Now a decisive part of that dream is being realized: a fully fledged skate park. “We need a space. We need to be visible,” Alibo tells me. “People ask me, ‘Why now?’ I think we are finally ready.” For both the founder and local skaters, a lack of infrastructure and support in the past has been frustrating — but still not enough to snuff out the underground fire growing on the streets. With the first skate park in the works as we speak, it seems like another step towards releasing the brakes that have been holding back skateboarding’s growth on the continent.