International Women's Day: boomsatsuma + Campus Skate Park

Last year, on International Women's Day, boomsatsuma collaborated with Campus Skate Parks to run a Girls Only Skate Session. The session saw women and girls of all ages, from complete beginners to those more advanced, visit The Pool and skate together in a safe, supportive environment. Saffron Records also attended to run DJing workshops throughout the night and Bristol Girls Can came down to take photos and spread the word about keeping fit and being active. A crack team of female boomsatsuma filmmakers documented the night and some incredible photos were taken by Tom Sparey.

The session, brainchild of Andre Seidel, Campus owner, and Lyndsay Davies, Creative Projects Manager at boomsatsuma, aims to offer females a comfortable, safe space to skate and try new things, whilst celebrating IWD itself and representing for women and diversity. Andre Seidel understands the issues facing the lack of female representation in urban sports and wants to find ways of challenging these issues. “We are always looking for ways to encourage female participation in skatepark based activities, but more importantly we want to celebrate the ever growing female skate scene and what better day to do it on?”

With boomsatsuma’s media production students offering a wealth of diverse female talent, a crack team of filmmakers, led and directed by young females, visitied The Pool on the 8th March last year to document the skating and interview the organisers and attendees about the importance of such events. The aim of the film was to showcase local talent, celebrate The Pool as an excellent resource for all in South Bristol, and to discuss some of the key issues around female representation in urban sports and electronic music. You can check out the full film out below. With the additional support of Bristol Girls Can, the event aims to encourage more girls to get into skating and be active. South Bristol is an area of particular need and this event hopes to broaden the reach of the dynamic youth work that already happens at Campus Skateparks, offering local young females a space to visit, feel comfortable and get active.

Cllr Kye Dudd, Cabinet Member with responsibility for Sport said: “As part of our Bristol Girls Can campaign we are hoping to inspire women and girls of all ages to get involved in sport. We want to encourage events which reach out to try and break negative stereotypes which can lead to people feeling excluded from certain activities. As part of Bristol Girls Can we are working with organisations around the city to offer advice about how we can break down any perceived barriers and are hopeful that we will soon see many more women and girls getting out to try something new this summer.” Lyndsay Davies said “We know that females are underrepresented in urban sports, music and production. We also know that South Bristol is under resourced. What this event seeks to do is to offer an evening where females can feel part of a urban community that they may otherwise feel marginalised from, develop and take ownership of their skills and talents, and, in some cases, step over boundaries to see South Bristol as a place that offers diversity”

Happy International Women's Day, everybody.