Abenezer Temesgen

Abenezer Temesgen, (born 1 October 1996), is an Ethiopian skateboarder, entrepreneur and artist. He is best known for co-founding the youth organization Ethiopia Skate,^[1] which aims to build the very first Skatepark in his home country, Ethiopia. He started skateboarding when he was 15, which was up to this point almost completely unknown in Ethiopia. Quickly he gained popularity among his people and others from abroad, which has led to a constant growth of the project.

Early life

Abenezer was born and raised in the 08 Sar Bet district of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he spent most of his childhood. In his early age, his friends and mother would describe him as being "hyperactive", even in his sleep he would roll back and forth so violently that he would often end up on the floor, so his mother had to put him in a basket to keep him from hurting himself unknowingly.

When he was 14 years old, he met a few people from Finland who gave him a DVD which contained a video of Arto Saari doing his first street part, and from that day on he knew he wanted to become a skateboarder. He tried building his own skateboard out of a wooden plank with some furniture wheels attached to it, but it worked only for a short time before falling apart. After one year he met Mintesnot Semachew, who was skating on an actual skateboard on the way to a parking lot. When he saw him, he just ran towards him and his mother. Since Mintesnot's mother was concerned that her son might fall off the board and hurt himself one day, she insisted on her son giving the board to Abenezer. From that day forward, he never put the board down. The day after, Abenezer and Mintesnot met again and he taught him the basics about skateboarding.^[2] After some time, others got interested in his growing skateboarding skills and as he became more famous, sponsors started asking him to skate for them.^[3]

Abenezer's best friend, Henock Yetbarek, who rented a room with his mother close to Abenezer's house, got interested in skateboarding as well. Abenezer taught him how to skate and so the idea was born to teach other kids the same thing.

Ethiopia Skate

When Abenezer was 15, he and a group of his friends, including Henock, would start skateboarding. At first, his goal was simple: Teach children how to use skateboards and keep them off the streets.^[4] But soon, he realized he could do much more than that. He set out to build the nation's first public skatepark.^[5][6] Thanks to a friend from Spain, he was able to get seven boards which he used to teach more kids.^[7][8]

Then, Abenezer started working with Hermella Wondimu on her project Drop of Water. At the same time, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk was visiting Ethiopia on behalf of Charity: Water.^[9] Hermella informed Abenezer about Hawk coming to Ethiopia, he did not initially believe it but then a Charity: Water worker called Hermella on her cellphone, informing her that he was with Hawk and she established a teleconference between him and Abenezer. Hawk told Abenezer that he was in Mek'ele, which is located 780 kilometers away from Addis Ababa. Because of this, Abenezer could not meet up with him. But Hawk told him that he would be coming back to Ethiopia one day and that Abenezer should just keep going further, which motivated him a lot. Abenezer would later refer to this as the best day of his life.

After he met professional photographer Sean Stromsoe, he was able to shoot a documentary video^[10] about the community, which allowed them to start Ethiopia Skate and would lead to an Indiegogo campaign, in which Ethiopia Skate raised $14,900.^[11] The money was used for shipping and tax on donated equipment and to build one portable mini ramp, two rails and two kickers that are able to be moved around the city, as there is still no real skatepark available.^[12][13] This has allowed them to get more kids to skate and to expand further.^[14]

Artist work

Abenezer has had an interesting artistic career. He is known for taking photos and videos for Miss Universe Ethiopia 2012 as well as working for Ethiopia-based fashion designer Ruth Woldeselasie^[15] and for doing some modeling work himself.

He also helped filming the music video for Daggyshash – Gizzea^[16]

References

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