This video reveals the hopes of Saudi’s extreme sports community
Being young and Saudi: The key to the Kingdom’s future…
Vision 2030 puts Saudi youth and sports at the centre stage. In Saudi Arabia, where two-thirds of the population is under 35, constructive youth engagement is necessary for socio-economic development.
Previously, there has generally been limited encouragement and focus in Saudi Arabia on sports, particularly participation in sports and development of sports infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia’s sports sector has since undergone an overhaul, with a proven track record of hosting global sporting events and building strong relationships with sporting bodies in the process.
Adventure sports, however, are currently an under-served sporting segment, but there is a great deal of interest in extreme sports in general.
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Skateboarding as Saudi youth culture
For many skaters themselves, skateboarding is much more than merely a leisure pastime. An alternative to mainstream organised team sports, skateboarding has developed as a youth culture that focuses on individuality.
As a subculture, skaters value creativity, risk, and freedom – aptly encapsulating Vans’ ethos.
In this video, Vans exposes the struggles and wins of first-generation skateboarders and BMX freestyle riders within the action sports scene in Saudi Arabia. Being chased off the streets, restricted to dangerous public spaces, and being limited to purchasing gears online from overseas were some of the realities previously faced by those youth.
Shot entirely in Riyadh, this video shares the story in an uncensored way and leads the debate around this timeless topic on action sports communities. Local youth speak of the progress they’ve witnessed and the long road still ahead.
The generation that embraces the new Saudi Arabia
There is no denying the ambition in the Saudi Vision 2030. Young people in Saudi Arabia are the pillars of the country’s reform plan and the future of the Kingdom.
They are determined to help build a thriving country in which all citizens can fulfil their dreams, hopes and ambitions.
These youth have already begun the process and are continuously pushing it forward. If Saudi Arabia’s younger demographics are given the space to contribute and the means to prosper, then so will the Kingdom.
This is only the first part of the story of the key to the Kingdom’s future. The rest is still being written…
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