Janel Nakigozi is finding freedom on four wheels—and showing a new generation of girls that moving forward does not mean leaving your identity behind.
I first saw Janel in a video, skating through the red, dusty streets of Kampala, weaving in and out of boda bodas, matatus, shoppers and roadside stalls. The city seemed to be in constant motion: traffic, colour, voices, people heading somewhere. And through it all came Janel, the wind blowing through her hair, her beautiful gomesi flowing behind her as she rolled casually along in her Converse, handbag swinging from her arm, looking like she was off to church.
There was something about the way she moved through the city that stopped me. She wasn't just skating. She was carrying her whole world with her. I knew I wanted to know more.
I met the Skate Queen herself over a WhatsApp video call during one of the community skate days she helps run in Uganda. Around her, girls were skating and there was a real buzz of excitement as we talked. Through the Skate and Grind skate family, Janel is helping build a community where girls can roll, rise and rewrite their stories, showing them that it is possible to dream bigger, believe in themselves and proudly embrace who they are.
Skateboarding isn't exactly the obvious choice for a young Ugandan woman. The sport has historically been male-dominated, and there have been plenty of reasons for parents to worry about their daughters taking it up, from injuries to wider perceptions around skateboarding. Janel's own parents initially tried to discourage her after she was injured, restricting her skating while she was at school.
Janel, however, had already found her way onto a board.
In 2013, while she was still at school, a friend arrived with a skateboard and dared the students to step on it. Whoever could stand on it without falling would get the board.
Janel took the challenge. She didn't fall.
The board wasn't hers to keep, but the moment stayed with her. Her friend introduced her to a coach named Kizza, who connected her with other skaters and eventually gave her an old board of her own. Skateboards were scarce, so Janel and her friends practised wherever they could, including a basketball court in Saza.
What began as a dare became a passion, then a community, and eventually something Janel could give back.
Today, she skates with friends, teaches younger girls and helps create the kind of community she once found for herself. Alongside Skate and Grind, she is helping build a space where girls can ride, learn, encourage one another and imagine possibilities that might not otherwise have seemed available to them.
Janel never imagined that the skateboard she first stepped onto as a schoolgirl would one day become a way to inspire a new generation of girls to proudly embrace who they are.
And, naturally, I wanted to know about the handbag.
Janel carries it because it is part of her Skate Queen identity.
“Every lady has a handbag,” she told me.
When she opened it up on our video call, there was a battery-operated fan for those hot Kampala days, lip gloss, jewellery and all the other essentials a Skate Queen might need while rolling around town. I mean, I can barely manage myself on a skateboard at times, and this queen is casually accessorising.
I had also asked Janel what men make of her skating. They have embraced it, she told me, because she still looks like a beautiful Ugandan woman.
And perhaps that is the point.
Janel isn't leaving her femininity at the edge of the skatepark in order to become a skateboarder. She is bringing it with her. The handbag, the jewellery, the lip gloss, the whole lot.
And then there is the gomesi.
The long, flowing dress carries history, cultural identity and a particular kind of Ugandan femininity in its folds. It is especially associated with Baganda women, for whom the gomesi became a defining form of traditional dress, before becoming a much broader symbol of Ugandan womanhood.
For Janel, putting it on before she gets on her skateboard is not about choosing tradition over modernity. It is about taking that history with her.
She doesn't have to leave one part of herself behind to make room for another.
She can be a Muganda woman and a skateboarder. Feminine and athletic. A surveyor, a makeup artist, a model and a Skate Queen.
And somehow, it all fits.
During the week, Janel works as a valuation surveyor, carrying out property inspections, and she also runs a makeup business and works as a model. Her life is not divided into neat little categories. They all seem to travel together.
Perhaps that is why watching her skate through Kampala is so joyful.
There is no grand announcement that tradition and modernity can coexist. Janel isn't standing there explaining the concept.
She's already doing it.
When I ask what she loves most about Uganda, she doesn’t hesitate. “I have to love it. I’ve never left.”
But she would like to travel. London is top of her wish list, and I can picture it now: Skate Queen rolling through the streets in her gomesi, weaving through the crowds, handbag swinging from one arm, completely at home in the city of royals.
Utterly unbothered.
Completely herself.
Absolute icon.
👑
With gratitude to @the.skate.queen and to @skateandgrind__ for nurturing an inclusive, joyful and growing skate community in Uganda.
