WOMEN
SKATE
THE WORLD

Nanja, you are one of the founders of the organization “Women Skate the World”? How did that come about?

Nanja: Three years ago, we founded “Women skate the World”. Back then we started it to bring more girls into skateboarding. By now it has grown to becoma a professional charity. There is a long story behind it. Right before I founded the organization, I did some volunteer work in Palestine for a skateboarding NGO. There I met the other co-founder of “Women skate the World”, Amber. In Palestine we realized, we can make a big difference as role models to all the girls in the village where we taught skateboarding. That is when we came up with the idea of creating a global platform to reach more women and girls in skateboarding.

For people who don’t know, what is “Women Skate the World”?

Nanja: We do different projects for girls, women, and queer people, to bring them to skateboarding and to build a community that is safe and diverse within skateboarding. We work to inspire, educate, and engage people with skateboarding as a tool. The program was first launched in Athens in cooperation with a skateboarding program that works in the refugee community. A year later, I started it in the Netherlands. Since then, it has been growing quite big, with different partners and different programs.

We realized that to attract more women we need to create lesson content that people find interesting. We also wanted to make it a bit more empowering, so we came up with a combination of skateboarding, education, and creativity in a lesson program. If you have a climate change lesson for example, you will start with a demonstration of recycled or upcycled skateboards and then you would make your own design.

What makes a good role model in your opinion? 

Nanja: I think anyone can be a role model. I guess I am a role model to certain people in our programs. There are people who see me as an example, which is weird to say about yourself. I think it is about finding your own path in life and I’m happy to do something that I like every day.

You inspire, empower and engage people through skateboarding. What is the ideal outcome you want to see through your programs?

Nanja: The ultimate goal are two things: 1) that everyone feels welcome, accepted and safe. 2) And on the other hand, also in society, I want people to have their own community, their own safe place. Both points strengthen each other, so we can raise a next generation of girls and queer youth that feel confident, strong, and empowered, for the world to become better and fairer.

Are there any more initiatives planned with Women Win & PUMA in the near future?

Nanja: PUMA supports Women Win and Women Win collaborates with a program called Skateistan. Together they have founded the “roll model program”. In the first year “Women skate the World” has been involved as a participant. So, we have received support by developing our program and got leadership workshops. Now in the second year, I have been a coach to participants. So, I helped others to set up programs and with the organization of workshops. We’ve been able to welcome more than 150 people in the Women Skate the World programs, through this program in two years.

Thank you very much for the interview, Nanja!