In Photos: Meet the Resilient, Young ‘Skate Girls of Kabul’

‘Skate Girls of Kabul’ has received worldwide appreciation. These photographs will surely make you smile.

A much-needed breath of fresh air comes in the form of young girls from Kabul photographed on their skateboards.

In a city where it is considered a taboo for women to ride bikes, London-based portrait photographer Jessica Fulford-Dobson met and photographed young skater girls of Skateistan, an NGO that empowers its members through skateboarding.

Over 50% of the students are street children and 40% are girls. Skateistan has helped educate over 2,000 children since 2007.

Fulford-Dobson photographed the young girls in Skateistan’s two project locations of Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan.

Fulford-Dobson’s book, Skate Girls of Kabul, was named one of the 10 best photography books of the year by the Smithsonian.

I feel lucky to have met them [the skate girls]. I hope that this collection captures something of their spirit: their joy in life, their individuality and their community.

Fulford-Dobson’s Statement

Size Doesn’t Matter

I love the way her little hennaed hand rests gently – yet possessively – on the skateboard, and how small she seems beside it. Above all, I love her assurance: her firm, steady gaze.

Jessica Fulford-Dobson

Flower Power

It’s hard not to think of Afghan girls skateboarding as a remarkable and quirky clash of cultures. But when you see these girls in their beautiful, bright, flowing clothes tearing around the skate park, often yelping and shrieking with laughter, your preconceptions drop away. You realise that however unusual it may seem, they’re doing what comes naturally to them.

Foreward, Skate Girls of Kabul

As with girls anywhere in the world, once you give them the chance to do something they love, each one begins to discover her own personality, her sense of style and how to express it.

Foreward, Skate Girls of Kabul

Resilience

One amazing thing about skateboarding is that it demonstrates – perhaps more than many other sports – just how tough and resilient these girls – or any girls – can be.

Jessica Fulford-Dobson

Take a Seat for a Stand

Skateistan creates an oasis in their world, where they don’t [typically] get to be children.

Jessica Fulford-Dobson

Strike A Pose

[My photographs are] almost like fashion portraits, but of course the girls are wearing their own clothes and I wanted them to choose how they would sit for me. I didn’t style them at all, I took them just as they were when they hopped up onto the platform.

Jessica Fulford-Dobson

She Can Be Who She Wants to Be

Even though I had to communicate through an interpreter, I began to see and appreciate their different personalities – in the way they spoke, how they dressed, how they moved, how they behaved with each other and, of course, in the way they skateboarded.

Jessica Fulford-Dobson

With the current series of unfortunate events that are taking place throughout the world, we believe Fulford-Dobson’s 2014 photoshoot of these young and resilient skater girls will continue to bring smiles to people all over the world.