More Than a Kite School. It's Home.
My name is Henry Yanes
Henry Yanes is the founder of Friendly Kite School, but the story did not begin with a business plan, years of kiteboarding experience, or even with a kite.
Henry first arrived in Playa Buen Hombre, Dominican Republic, in July 2021 to visit his father. At that time, he had never even seen a kite before. Over the following months, he slowly got to know the local riders and young men around the beach. They repeatedly offered to teach him how to kite, but Henry kept saying no. His attention was somewhere else: helping his father repair and improve their property.
It would be almost two years before Henry finally learned to kite himself.
But long before he became a rider, he had already become part of the local community.
As the months passed, Henry became close with the local guys and began to see something that stayed with him: there was plenty of talent, motivation and passion, but very little equipment and very few real professional opportunities.
More than six months after arriving in Buen Hombre, Henry decided to help.
The beginning of Friendly Kite School was extremely simple:
four kites, two bars, two boards, three helmets and a lot of ideas.
There was no large operation, no polished school and no guaranteed stream of students. There was simply a group of people trying to build something better together.
Little by little, the project grew.
Henry eventually decided that if Friendly Kite was going to become a real school, it needed real professional standards. He applied for IKO certification, and on August 28, 2022, Friendly Kite School officially became a certified kite school.
That moment changed everything.
The school had begun obtaining better equipment and had become a North dealer, but one major challenge remained: there were still very few students and most of the local riders did not yet have internationally recognized instructor qualifications.
Henry decided to change that too.
Rather than simply hiring instructors from somewhere else, he focused on helping the local riders become professionals themselves. By January 2023, Friendly Kite had helped build a team of more than 10 IKO-certified professionals and successfully hosted its first IKO professional training course at the school.
Friendly Kite was now an IKO PRO Center.
Another professional course followed in March 2023, and that was also when Henry began taking his own first kite-control lessons.
One of the instructors who successfully came through that period was Bruno Alves da Silva, a rider from Praia de Macapá, Brazil. Bruno would eventually become one of Henry’s close friends and a major part of the next chapter of Friendly Kite School.
After a full season in Buen Hombre, the school had grown tremendously in experience, organization and knowledge.
Financially, it was still a developing business, but the team had learned an enormous amount about teaching, running a school and building something from almost nothing.
Around the same time, Henry had started riding and testing Vantage kites. Before the end of that summer, he had become a strong believer in the equipment and in the company behind it.
Friendly Kite decided to move away from North and fully commit to Vantage Kites.
That partnership continues today, and Friendly Kite remains extremely happy not only with the equipment, but also with the values and people behind the brand.
Then came Brazil.
Bruno had been encouraging Henry to open another Friendly Kite School in his hometown of Praia de Macapá, Piauí. Eventually, Henry agreed.
On October 1, 2023, Henry arrived in Brazil for the first time.
Two days later, on October 3, Friendly Kite School Macapá was operating.
What had started in Buen Hombre with four kites, two bars, two boards and three helmets had now become an international kite school with locations in two countries.
IKO PRO Center certification for Macapá followed shortly afterward.
Brazil also became an important part of Henry’s own progression as a rider. It was in Macapá that he landed his first back rolls and continued developing his own understanding of the sport from the perspective of a student, rider, instructor and school owner.
The first Brazilian season finished in December 2023, and Henry and the team returned to Buen Hombre to begin the next season there.
By then, Friendly Kite School had become much more than a kite school.
It had become a way to create opportunities, professional training and a future for local riders in two very different communities connected by the same sport.
More Than a Kite School. It's Home.
And the story was only beginning.
To be continued...
