SPKA is currently laying crucial groundwork for establishing parkour within Switzerland's sporting structures. All the tasks that we are currently taking care of are part of building a platform that enables parkour to further grow as a community-driven movement and therefore staying as independent as possible without missing on the benefits that established sports do have in Switzerland. The Swiss parkour Tour and Youth + Sport are just the beginning of what we plan to achieve. In the end, every parkour organisation and every parkourist can benefit from our doings in the future.

SPKA has not taken any membership fees until this day. Everything was achieved based on voluntary work. With that in mind we are proud of what we were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time! Organising the Swiss parkour tour which unites jams and the Swiss parkour championship twice, implementing our website, maintaining an Instagram channel, making competition rulesets and marketing plans with awesome designs for the Swiss parkour tour, writing Covid protection concepts for parkour that were used by our members, writing blogposts for the community, organising and hosting community meetings and last but not least: Laying the foundation for J+S Parkour, Switzerland's official certification system. These are just some examples of our doings from over the last 2.5 years!

Youth + Sports

This was a lot of work that we were happy to do because we are driven by the love for parkour and because we see the importance of our doings for the future of parkour in Switzerland. However, we are currently reaching the limits of what is possible based on voluntary work only. The development of J+S Parkour is consuming around 25 hours of work per week. This is why we have employed Julian Dutoit to work mainly on the J+S Parkour project, while making sure everyone that is interested in participating in the project has a chance of doing so. The Swiss government is funding around half of our financial expenses for the J+S project. We as the Swiss parkour association that is implementing and governing J+S Parkour have to come up with the rest of the money needed for this project. As a young organisation we are far from being capable of financing this project without the help of the Swiss parkour community. We really do depend on the community support. This is why we are asking every parkour organisation and every parkourist in Switzerland to make a donation for the future of parkour. J+S Parkour is improving the quality of Swiss parkour education. In the end, every organisation that runs parkour classes or camps by educated parkour coaches will receive financial support by the Swiss government. So donating money for the J+S Parkour project is an investment in our all future. We are doing the work for the community, for the parkour organisations and for the sport.

Swiss Parkour Tour

The Swiss Parkour Tour was created for the community. As competitions are gaining more and more interest from the parkourists around the world, we took the chance to create a series of events, to bring together the community and create events including jams and the Swiss parkour championship consisting of different competition formats.

These events were mainly organised by the responsible board members of SPKA in cooperation with the organisations who hosted the events. As both tour series were a big success, we are looking forward to level up these events even more in the future. But also in this segment, we were overstepping the limits of possibilities without any financial support.

Making a common dream come true

This project was born from a common dream. All the parkourist in Switzerland who wanted to develop parkour have created teams and associations to develop the local communities - to grow their discipline that they love so much, by creating content on networks, participating in events, organising sessions with a family atmosphere and finally trying to live from their passion.

The SPKA wants to take all these projects even further! The current interest of the organisations in Switzerland should be in the Youth + Sports project, as this will make the sport grow and the recognition on a national level will follow afterwards.

More kids will join classes after this national recognition and the government pays youth + sports certified organisations for their classes. Every parkour coach having a J+S certification in Switzerland can profit from this increasing demand and from the funds paid by the government.

Financing the work of SPKA is necessary, as this is our one and only chance to get into the J+S System. There won't be another one.

We need to implement Parkour J+S now and it can only happen with the help of all of you. If everyone invests a little amount of money into this J+S Project now, SPKA will be the key to unlock lots of funds for every J+S educated parkour coach in Switzerland in the very near future. As long as we are able to finance the project and the administration of J+S Parkour, the first J+S Parkour classes will happen in early 2022. If the project does not succeed, the SPKA will not be able to continue to work on its projects and will probably have to dissolve itself. Therefore, the Swiss parkour community would lose big parts of its independence, its culture and its family atmosphere.

Now it’s your turn, we need your support!

Link to donation plattform: https://www.spka.ch/en/donations

PS: You can additionally help by spreading these news! Please forward this blog post to your friends, to the members of your own organisation, to their parent or to people that might be able and willing to donate for Swiss parkour.