Project Fearless is an after-school club like no other. Bringing together girls from across Amsterdam, its diverse programme of sports, arts and innovation courses aim to create and nurture a fearlessly supportive network. Led by dynamic female role models, girls aged 9 to 14 are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones, find their own voices and develop confidence in their abilities, identities and ideas.

“There’s room for us all to be a leader and a teammate at the same time,” Fearless founder Mérida Miller tells me. Instead of competing for seemingly limited routes to success, girls and women need mutually supportive, empowering networks around them, she says. That’s the thinking at the heart of Project Fearless: its Mind & Body, The Maker’s Space and Community & Leadership focus areas all nurture girls’ individuality and friendships at ages where self-confidence can often drop.

*Mérida Miller, founder of Project Fearless. Credit: David Meulenbeld*

ROOTED IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

Mérida tells me she’s still not lost the “rose-coloured glasses” she had when she first moved to the Netherlands from the United States. It was originally a corporate role that brought her over here, as a Concept Designer in sportswear brand Under Armour’s Innovation Team.

Keen to put down real roots in Amsterdam, Mérida soon started organising initiatives that would forge connections with the local community. She founded Run Like a Girl Amsterdam, a self-organising group for female-identifying social runners and - until recently - co-ran Common Threads, an environmentally-conscious network sharing sewing and design knowledge to prolong the life of clothes.

Looking back, Mérida sees now that these initiatives paved the way to Project Fearless, which has finally combined her drive to practically create, stay active, build a meaningful community and generate an impact that extends beyond herself. It was the local contacts she made through her earlier community-based initiatives, too, that provided the vital impetus needed to make Project Fearless a reality.

*Mentor discussions in the Mind & Movement Lab. Credit: Project Fearless*

EMBRACING ENTREPRENEURSHIP

“I felt pretty supported at all times… [even] from people that I don’t really know very well,” she tells me. Amsterdammers’ welcoming and often intrinsically entrepreneurial character was vital, too: “I don’t think I would have felt confident enough in my network or my abilities to start Project Fearless in the States… there’s that mentality among the Dutch of ‘you can do this’.”

It’s exactly that empowering mindset that project Fearless aims to cultivate in its girls. “Everybody has the ability to create an impact with their passion… in a way that feels comfortable and authentic,” Mérida explains. It’s about success on the girls’ own terms, she adds, whether that means one day leading a climate march, or creating a children’s book about climate change: “Whether you’re the introvert or the extrovert, your voice does matter… and there are going to be others who are like you.”

*Experimenting and creating in Climate Science Meets Art. Credit: Project Fearless*

From its first course intake in September 2019, Project Fearless has attracted girls from all over Amsterdam, forging a tight-knit social group that otherwise might not have met. Part of the Fearless ethos is encouraging girls to sign up without their existing friends, in order to make those who haven’t yet been able to make friends in the city, or who want to find a social space away from their school peers, feel just as welcome.

That gives the girls a chance to “re-write who they’ve been told they need to be,” Mérida tells me, and find their voices in a way they might not have been able to within previous friendship dynamics.

LEADERS, THINKERS AND CREATORS OF THE FUTURE

All the Fearless courses aim to get the girls using their minds and bodies to engage with, experience and innovate for the community and world around them. During the first Design for Impact course, the girls devised solutions to help refugee children make friends more easily in the local Amsterdam community, in collaboration with non-profit Road of Hope.

The Climate Science Meets Art course saw the girls create Global Girl, a climate-conscious superhero spreading the message that everyone, everywhere can make a difference to help the planet.

*Global Girl, inspiring positive climate action across the world. Credit: Project Fearless*

Looking forward, there’s a female-led bike maintenance course in the works for when Project Fearless finds a permanent home for its Maker’s Space. Even in Amsterdam, where cycling is a near non-negotiable life skill, female bike mechanics are “few and far between,” Mérida tells me. But Fearless wants to show girls that “there is a path for them in that space,” developing practical skills as well as resilience, resourcefulness and self-reliance.

PROMOTING INCLUSIVITY

Mérida quickly recognised that language would be a vital part of truly integrating Project Fearless into the local Dutch community. “It was really important from the beginning that we weren’t just seen as an English-speaking organisation,” she tells me, allowing Project Fearless to become a hub for Dutch native and expat girls alike. Now, there’s a Dutch-speaking coach present for every Fearless course, allowing the girls to practise their conversational English and Dutch in a fluidly multilingual and “judgement-free” zone.

Promoting inclusivity is a central pillar of Project Fearless, as is reaching out to girls in more vulnerable sectors of Amsterdam society. “It’s something that we’re always conscious of,” Mérida says, adding that it’s important parents aren’t in a position where they have to choose between sending their girls to Project Fearless and covering other costs.

To that end, setting aside a Fearless scholarship fund has been a priority from the very start. The project recently joined the Jeugdfonds Sport & Cultuur network, an intermediary organisation sponsoring children’s year-round involvement in sports activities, which Mérida hopes will allow the project to reach further. Regardless of their circumstance, Fearless’ unequivocal message to all girls is “this is for you, there is a place for you here.”

GOING VIRTUAL

This summer, Project Fearless aimed to make real strides in reaching out to these girls through a series of pop-up events around Amsterdam. But, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic put those plans on hold. Being abruptly forced into a virtual version of Project Fearless was Mérida’s “worst nightmare,” she shares, as real-life connection, communication and creation are so central to the Fearless soul.

But “the girls are resilient,” she tells me, and quickly engaged with newly digitalised Project Fearless courses. Virtual meet-ups, creative sessions and even boxing continued providing the girls with the sense of community, familiarity, supportive communication and reliable routine that are central to Project Fearless.

*HIIT boxing sessions, since moved online. Credit: Project Fearless*

Now more than ever, maintaining some semblance of normalcy and human connection is absolutely key; one parent, Mérida shares, told her virtual Project Fearless was the “mental health lifesaver” that’s been getting them and their daughter through lockdown.

The economic instability brought about by the pandemic has also affected Project Fearless’ continuing search for sponsors, sustainable partnerships and a permanent clubhouse. But the Fearless team remains resolutely determined: “The girls are the focus, of course, and we’re going to continue doing what we can,” Mérida tells me.

THE FUTURE IS FEARLESS

As restrictions slowly relax back to normality, Project Fearless is welcoming its girls to equipment-free distanced boxing courses and a run club from early June, with skate sessions soon to follow.

Slowly but surely, it’ll be back stronger than ever before, welcoming Amsterdam girls ready to ignite their boldness, bravery, adventurous spirit and confidence, elevating themselves and the girls around them.

*Perfecting those skateboarding skills back in the autumn. Credit: Project Fearless*

Project Fearless’ summer courses are already underway, but the autumn line-up will be announced soon. To stay updated, you can sign up to the newsletter here.

If you’re an organisation or company looking to invest in the future of girls in Amsterdam and beyond, you can get in touch with Project Fearless here.

In a world where equal and just representation is still so keenly needed, Project Fearless is a welcome reminder that the future is indeed bright.

Words by Amsterdam correspondent Abi Malins

Project Fearless - Cultivating Confidence in Amsterdam’s Girls