<h3><span><span><span><strong><span><span>About Lina’s Girls Skate Week Essen&nbsp;</span></span></strong></span></span></span></h3>

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<p>The main goal of Lina's project was to promote self-love and empowerment in young girls. After previous experiences in skateboarding, she is aware of the power skateboarding can have. In particular, she sees the sport as a key to improving young girls' self-confidence.<em> </em></p>

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<p>"Even just learning small steps on a skateboard, it already feels like you can conquer the world, and that's a feeling I'm eager to pass on. When you understand that in skateboarding everyone has to put in the same effort to achieve something, it doesn't matter where you come from or what you look like"</p>
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<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Lina’s </span><span>project took place&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span>in the second week of the fall school break.</span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> Besides skateboarding, the project included diverse creative activities like a </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Painting/</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Graffiti workshop, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>jewelry worksh</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>op</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>, lino print workshop, screenprinting workshop and a movie night</span><span>. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span>In designing the project, Lina was interested in developing her program over the long term to continue to provide a safe space for girls to learn to skateboard in Essen.<span><span><span><span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>

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<p>“Basically I did a whole week of different events. I set different skate sessions all over the rural area in Germany and in different cities also. I organized different workshops and a skate contest at the end, which did not happen until today due to Corona”.<span><span><span><span><em><span>&nbsp;</span></em></span></span></span></span></p>
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<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Regarding the limitations due to the COVID restrictions, Lina stated she was lucky because her project was set before the hard lockdown happened. Even if she had to adapt her project to the new situation, she was able to carry out her project almost at 100%.&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>

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<p><span><em><span>"A maximum of 40 girls could participate in the skate sessions and there was capacity for 10 participants in the screen printing and graffiti workshops.</span> </em></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><em><span>So the girls had to sign up before on the website, then they got an email with all the information. That helped me to track the information about the participants. Everything worked out pretty well!”&nbsp;</span></em></span></span></span></span></span><em><span>&nbsp;</span></em></span></span></span></span><br />
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<p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><em>“We had to ad</em></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><em>apt the program to Covid restrictions but luckily the events took place before the hard </em><span><em>lockdown</em></span></span><em><span>. </span></em></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><em>One skate session was indoor, and another was planned in that skate park, but unfortunately the day before the skatepark was closed due to corona. But it was only one day; 5 out of 6 days went well, so I was really lucky."</em></span>&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>
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