Off-White founder and artistic director of Louis Vuitton Men’s Virgil Abloh has teamed up with the Pan-African clothing brand Daily Paper to bring a new skate park to Ghana.
"With this initiative, we hope to evolve the skate culture in Ghana to the next level and give locals a platform to grow their talents within a space that will hopefully become their biggest training ground to date," Jefferson Osei, co-founder of Daily Paper, told Vogue. "More than board sports, the park will be a creative hub for young Ghanaians to come together, exchange ideas, inspire each other, and build their futures through recreational activities. They now have a place where they can be themselves, freely develop their skills together with like-minded people, and reach their true potential. Hence the name, Freedom Skate Park."
Freedom Skate Park is being described as Ghana's first fully functional skate park.
The social collective Surf Ghana is also getting involved in the project. Founder Sandy Alibo explained how helpful Virgil has been during the process: “Virgil and Daily Paper came and listened—they didn’t just do whatever they wanted; they talked to us and supported our ideas,” Alibo says. “This project has a nice flavor—it has the diaspora; it has the local. We are working together all of us for Africa. We have a common goal.”
An exclusive t-shirt will drop on Dec. 21 at Daily Paper's pop-up in Ghana and 100% of the proceeds will go to the project. The shirt will be available online on Jan. 15, 2021.
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