Skateboard Parks Taking Off in Iraq and Afghanistan

But by far his most ambitious scheme is the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive project he hopes to develop in the heart of the city. The BZEE site is a sprawling, fifty-acre tract of open space called al-Zawra Park, which sits next to the Green Zone and contains the dilapidated Baghdad Zoo. Werner was able to secure a fifty-year lease on the property from Baghdad officials, at an undisclosed cost, and he's drawing up plans for amphitheaters, shops, cafes, a museum, amusement-park rides, a water park and other attractions. The idea, he says, is to create a sense of normalization after years of war.

"It's going to be a place for the people of Iraq and Baghdad to relax," he notes. "They don't have that now."

The pocket parks are designed to introduce kids in the neighborhoods to skateboarding. If the parks work as Werner envisions, they will function as a "natural feeder system" for a larger, permanent skatepark of half-pipes and concrete bowls designed by Los Angeles-based Spohn Ranch that he plans to build in al-Zawra Park. He also wants to create a 100-seat theater where professional skateboarders can offer demonstrations and skateboarding videos will be shown, to make sure the sport is "integrated into the social fabric of Iraq," he says.

"I'm very fond of this project, because I think it will get immediate traction," Werner adds. "It'll get the Iraqi youth into a sport which is healthy, give them something to do, something to compete with, look forward to. It will allow them to have a better connection with U.S. soldiers, many of whom are seventeen to twenty, who grew up on skateboards."

If the skate park is built, it will be passed into Afghan ownership within 12 months, he said, promising that, unlike many aid projects, it would not collapse. "The relationship between Afghans and foreigners is getting more distant," he said. "At least we're not pointing guns at them."