Skate Gal
Club

The skate gal club is the first skateboarding club for women and girls only in Ghana. It is a monthly meet-up to empower and inspire 100 women through skateboarding and art workshops.

It was launched on the 22nd of June 2019, to celebrate the world skateboarding day.The main goal is to connect creatives women and improve their wellbeing.
‍
The access to the club is free and the organization offers skateboarding lessons and also different art workshops (tye and dye tee-shirt, water painting, gardening, nail art etc) and activities like yoga, hula hoop, soul sister circle etc…

The initiative now counts more than 60 active members who come regularly at our monthly meet-up. The project is successful and has received many support and positive feedback all around the world. It has also been featured in Vogue, Vice, Skateism, I-D magazine, BBC, Now this, The Fader, Konbini, Kuulpeeps etc.

“For our collective, it’s bigger than just skateboarding. It’s a celebration of a community,

It’s happiness, a lifestyle, culture, wellness, togetherness, changing the narrative and also impacting an entire generation.”

“Girls, Women, this is our time! There is no limitations, we are fighters!”

We are here to inspire, educate, support, encourage, groom, give women a voice, empower and defy the stereotypes through sports.

We are determined to provide a support system that does not already exist and most importantly, create a safe net for women of all backgrounds, sizes and color.

We hope to see a day where women are showcased in the same light as men and also receive the same recognitions.We don’t just skateboard.

We are filmmakers, journalist, nurses, students, teachers, artist,entrepreneurs and much more!! We are everything!!

You! yes you! are our super hero today and tomorrow and the day after!”

Statement wittren by Sandy Alibo in collaboration with Kuukua Eshun (13 june 2019)

Women Skateboarding is new in Ghana. And in the past 5 years less than 10 girls tried to practice it regularly. Most of them are based in the capital city in Accra and Busua (located in Western region where the surf tourism is booming).

Despite the fact skateboarding events were opened to everybody, girls and women didn’t seem interested. Seeing this, in June 2019, Surf Ghana decided to expand his collective in collaboration with Kuukua Eshun (a multi-award winning Ghanaian writer and filmmaker) by launching the skate gal club. With the support of our best instructors, local brands, and volunteers, all members or friends of Surf Ghana collective, we organized skate lessons for beginners and art workshops.

For example, the number of attendees at the Skate Gal Club keep increasing and prove than Women-only spaces are necessary because they provide an opportunity where women can talk about anything from skateboarding to mixology, to fashion to domestic violence and more, all in a “safe space”.

For this project, we aren’t attempting to change Ghanaian’s minds about feminism; we’re creating a space where all women can talk about whatever it is, they’re most passionate about without fear of being mocked or judged. We also noticed that in Ghana, many women find physical training in the presence of men to be intimidating needs to be seriously addressed.

‍Also, we think that creating the kind of welcoming, inclusive, safe spaces could be handily accomplished by providing exclusive places for women and girls to train.

Our collective craves a space to call women, where they don’t have to feel threatened, hit on, talked over, or mansplained to. Where they can learn from each other, feel positive and get inspired.

We hope with this project that we can create a better equal representation of women and men. Through extreme sport, women practice being open and authentically themselves, we think that we help give them the courage to feel more comfortable in Ghana, knowing that a skate gal club is here and got their back.

So, until we see parity in Ghana or Africa in general, we are honoured to keep hosting these events and supporting this extraordinary group of young Ghanaian women.

Our goal for 2020 is to connect 500 women through skateboarding and our monthly meetups.

In the long term, with some active members, we plan to launch permanent sport infrastructure as a skatepark with women-only sessions to allow our women athletes to progress faster, in a safer environment, without harassment. Seeing a class full of Ghanaian women training will be more inviting and put a beginner more at ease. This gateway also will promote growth of the skateboarding community.

We also desire to connect female skateboarders with female entrepreneurs in Ghana with an educational program beside skateboarding. It will include workshops, talks, conference, trip.

Through extreme sport, women practice being open and authentically themselves, we think that we help give them the courage to feel more comfortable in Ghana, knowing that a skate gal club is here and got their back.

We also desire to connect female skateboarders with female entrepreneurs in Ghana with an educational program beside skateboarding. It will include workshops, talks, conference, trip.

The skate gal club is an initiative of Surf Ghana, which is a collective that support and encouraged skateboarding and surfing for the past 4 years. Through this experience  skateboarders have been able to experience working together, learning, and inspiring each other.

This process is effective to build the new generation of entrepreneurs in Africa.