The parkour pioneers of Qatar jumping to another level

SCENES shines a spotlight on youth around the world that are breaking down barriers and creating change. The character-driven short films will inspire and amaze, as these young change-makers tell their remarkable stories.

Achraf Bejaoui was 14 years old when he first came across parkour. "I was in Tunisia, it was Ramadan and I saw a couple of guys jumping and doing some flips. I asked them, 'What are you guys doing exactly?' They said, 'We're a group, we do breakdance and parkour', so I asked them if I could join them and that's how I started practising," he explains.

13 years later, Achraf is still practising the sport and is now head coach at Freestylers Tribe in Doha. Qatar's first parkour and freerunning sports centre. "Parkour changed my way of thinking in life. If I'm walking in the street and I see an obstacle, I feel like I should try that. That could be a double kong or a safety vault or whatever. So I see things differently. It's part of my life now," he recounts.

The word parkour derives from the French words for an obstacle course, 'parcours du combattant'. The sport's origins are said to have been born in the French military during the years leading up to the First World War. Naval officer Georges Hébert designed a challenging obstacle course to provide his soldiers with similar athletic skills he had witnessed amongst the indigenous tribes in Africa.

French actor David Belle is the modern-day founder of parkour. He developed the sport in the 1990s after taking inspiration from his father's military background. Belle starred in the 2004 French action film, 'District 13', which featured parkour for the first time. The cult movie became an underground sensation and soon had thousands practising the sport across