MENINANDA - Mozambique's first girls skateboarding club!

We have some exciting news for you!!! 

This past month, we received a visitor from the United States. Her name is Kava Garcia Vasquez and she's a skateboarder from New York City.

Kava Garcia Vasquez, founder of Meninanda.

In October 2016, she reached out to ASM via Facebook with a question: would you be interested in starting a girls skateboarding program at ASM? In January 2017, she applied for a grant from the Davis Projects for Peace organization in order to realize her dream of encouraging girls in Mozambique to skateboard. When she was awarded the grant, we realized something big was about to change at ASM.

A collaboration between Davis Projects for Peace, ASM, and Skate-aid, Meninanda is Mozambique’s first skateboarding club for girls. Established in July 2017, the project’s goal was to use skateboarding as a tool to promote peace, balance, and self-awareness in the lives of young girls aged 7-17 in the Maxaquene C neighbourhood of Maputo, Mozambique.

Through art workshops, film sessions, and skateboarding lessons, Meninanda contributed to the work that ASM co-founders Isard Pindula and Ruben Vilanculos have spent years doing: creating a space where local youth could skateboard, do their homework, create art, exchange ideas, and seek mentorship.



Meninanda’s girls-focused inaugural month culminated in a collaborative mural project painted by the youth of ASM as well as with a launch party in which members of the Maxaquene community were invited to celebrate twenty-five epic skateboarding individuals who also happened to be their (grand)daughters, nieces, cousins, sisters, peers, and friends.

Project Details

This project was designed as a collaborative project between Kava Garcia Vasquez and Isard Pindula, founder and president of ASM. Our main objectives were to:

1. Create a skateboarding club for girls at ASM 
2. Build a community skatepark at ASM’s Maxaquene headquarters 
3. Expand ASM programming beyond skateboarding so as to include the arts (primarily drawing, writing, and film) 
4. Encourage collaboration and promote peace and understanding among and between genders 

We created a schedule that designated specific days for girls-only skate sessions, arts and crafts, and outings. Mondays and Fridays were all-gender community skate sessions, Tuesdays and Thursdays were reserved for girls-only skate sessions, and Wednesdays were devoted to art.

We also established ground rules and guidelines that we would remind the students of before each skate session. During sessions, we organized the park and distributed skateboards evenly between beginners and intermediate/advanced skaters, encouraging older skaters to lead younger ones.

 

Using skateboarding as a vehicle for female and youth empowerment, Meninanda promotes peace in Maputo by creating spaces where young girls can learn, play, and build community. In a city rife with unemployment, corruption, and sexism, Meninanda provides young girls with an activity that doubles as a fun hobby as well as an educational and community-building tool.

In the short term, Meninanda brought together 25 young girls for regular skateboarding, art, and film sessions. Since the project's founding in 2017, the girls - our beloved meninandas  - have become much more adept and organizing and running their all-girls skate sessions, learning important leadership skills that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

In the long term, by promoting skateboarding to Maputo’s young girls, Meninanda will have helped produce an entire generation of female skateboarders in Maputo and in Mozambique. Our hope is that this project continues to grow and contribute to the overall sense of inclusivity, peace, and respect in Maputo’s skateboarding community.