Dencity: The challenges of building a female skateboarding community in Lagos
In an interview with The Record’s Omon Okhuevbie, the 24-year-old skateboarder and streetwear fashion entrepreneur shared the challenges of building a skateboarding community for young girls and women in Lagos and other states in Nigeria.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lagos, Abimsola Naiwo, feeling bored, decided to try out her brother’s skateboard. With a few tips from him, she began skateboarding around the house. As Lagos gradually reopened after the pandemic, Naiwo often joined her brother and his friends to skate on the street behind Freedom Park, near St Nicholas Hospital on Lagos Island.
By 2021, they had moved to the National Stadium, where the ample space allowed them to skateboard freely.
In late 2020, Naiwo met Blesson Ewona.
“It was amazing to find another girl like me skating,” she told The Record. “We skated together a few times on the street behind Freedom Park before we all moved to the National Stadium. She decided to create Dencity and asked me and a few other girls to join, and that’s how we started.
Dencity is a female-only skateboarding community in Lagos, aiming not only to enjoy skateboarding but also to grow, connect, and empower the female skateboarding culture in Nigeria.
In an interview…
