top of page

The Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy, located in the heart of Philadelphia, and headed by Erin Brown, is a nonprofit established to preserve and educate the public on the history and culture of Urban Black Cowboys in the City of Philadelphia. An exciting chapter is beginning for North Run, whose presence in the world of show jumping is well known, to ally with this wonderful organization and to embark on a long term relationship through the Concrete to Show Jumping program.

 

Our mission is to educate equestrians by opening doors to diversity through our unified common denominator – our love of horses.

 

We aim to open the eyes, minds and hearts of more people by participating in new experiences, forming new alliances and building friendships with equestrians from diversified backgrounds.

 

We have launched the first phase of the Concrete to Show Jumping Program to:

 

  • Raise awareness through education and interaction in an effort to eliminate social injustices, discrimination and racism within our horse communities.

  • Bridge our worlds and join together to foster understanding and unity between varied groups of equestrians. PURA will be North Run’s Urban Riding affiliate and contact, and we will be their show jumping partner.

  • Share our interactions through video presentations and to provide educational resources to our students, so a new generation of equestrians can be educated in the pursuit of fighting for social equality and nondiscrimination. While we would prefer to do this in person, due to COVID-19 and limited travel, face-to-face interactions will be part of a later phase.

  • Actively participate in fundraising and sponsorship efforts for PURA so their organization and programs can expand and grow.

 

As this project continues forward, we will be sharing resources we are gathering in the coming weeks.

 

Future plans include making trips from Wellington, FL to Philadelphia, PA with NR students, riders and staff to spend time with and meet our equestrian friends at PURA.

 

Additionally NR will be working with Just World International in an effort to broaden our reach to further spread this message in the fight for racial equality throughout our world.

 

The North Run team is excited to embark on working with this very special group. Urban riding programs are a vital way of life and provide a safe place where many inner city kids can go to learn about horses, riding, care, commitment, responsibility and friendship. It is our hope that together we can make our equestrian universe more accessible and more inclusive to ensure social inequality and racism is eliminated within all segments of our community of horses.

 

We encourage other barns within our community to become actively engaged in participation with affiliates of their choice in an effort to continue this enlightenment.

 

Many thanks to PURA’s program director, Erin Brown for sharing in our vision! Together our concrete plan is to make a change!!

 

#concretetoshowjumping

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
bottom of page