EcoRyders for Eco Justice

Positive News   
June 25th, 2012

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SOUTH BRONX, NY – Making environmental education fun and engaging for young folks is Victor Davila’s passion.

Victor wanted to come up with something that would spark his and other youths’ interest. And once he got his first skateboard, that was it. “Skateboarding has a way of sinking its teeth into you,” he says. “There’s friendliness and fellowship within skateboarding.” he applied that sense of community into a cause and co-founded Ecoryders, a series of summer workshops that combine environmental and health education with skateboarding.

Taught by older students, middleschool workshop participants build their own skateboards, help in the community gardens, and learn about pressing environmental issues in their community.

Ecoryders offers a way to tackle both high obesity rates among local youth as well as lack of public transportation in the area.

“I’m doing this to improve myself and my community not because I want to, but because I have to,” explains Victor who discovered that in order to live in a better neighborhood he doesn’t have to move out. he gets to create a better one right where he is.

Victor became a recipient of 2011 Bower Youth Awards and recently, got requests to make eco-skateboards for Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton. (Picture that!)

More Information:
Boweryouthawards.org
Tel: 510.845.9144

Story originally appeared at: Positive News

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