<p><span><span><span><strong><span><span>Nanja Van Rijsse – Women Skate the World</span></span></strong></span></span></span></p>

<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Nanja Van Rijsse has a strong background in social skateboarding. She is from Amsterdam, The Netherlands and she applied for the 2020 call belonging to an existing organization – she is the cofounder of&nbsp; Women Skate the World – An NGO which sees skateboarding as a tool for empowerment, change and an equal society.&nbsp; Nanja is also part of the advisory board of this year’s ROLL Models event so we thought it would be interesting for anyone involved in gender equity and skateboarding to learn more about her steps!</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>

<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>During the ROLL Models 2020 program, Nanja, alongside Women Skate the World, created a Skate &amp; Create program aimed at getting more girls on skateboards and by doing so, she wanted to create an impact not only in the skateboard community but in the society as a whole.&nbsp; The overall goal their programs was to inspire, engage and empower young girls. To achieve that, they firmly believe that by combining skateboarding with other activities helps to attract a bigger audience – more girls on skateboards.&nbsp;</span></span></span></span></span></span></p>

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<p><span><span><span><span><em><span>“Our project was Skate and Create for children, but on the side also a beautiful program which was more for 12+ womxn and LGTBIQ. That went pretty well last year, it was really going big but now we have been doing nothing since December which may make the community we have been building decrease a bit again because we don’t really have contact – winter is rouge.&nbsp; I hope that this year we start soon, of course it will be better during March-April so maybe we can start off then. Then we can start building a community.”</span></em></span></span></span></span></p>

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