The Story

The very foundation of the Hijab Project is a community story. It takes us back to when Maxwell attended junior high school, the Islamic Training Institute in Nima, Ghana. Although it is an Islamic school, students from all religions attend.

At the time Maxwell had a classmate named Habiba. She had a true talent for sports, but whenever there would be a sports activity in school, he rarely saw her participate. As a Muslima coming from a very religious family, Habiba found it challenging to play sports without her hair being fully covered. She had access to a normal veil as part of the school uniform however, that veil was supposed to be worn during daily classes. It wasn’t suitable as a sports veil. This made it difficult for her to play sports.The fact that Habiba and other girls could not experience the joy of doing what they love, is something that stuck with Maxwell.

Later on, in 2018, when Maxwell had the opportunity to sign for Nike as a professional athlete, Habiba’s story immediately came to mind. That’s when he got the idea to support the girls in his community . He had a conversation with Tina Salminen, the marketing director for Africa at that time, and she was willing to support the idea. Together they provided sports hijabs and other sports gear for the girls to wear. Ever since, the Maxwell W foundation organizes an annual football tournament for girls in Nima.

Impact

The Vision

We value every person’s athletic talent and we would like to create an environment in which the youth can freely experience the joy of playing sports.

Sports can make an incredible difference in kids’ lives. Therefore it is important to us to find the best possible solutions to circumstances which make it challenging for girls in particular to participate in sports.

We organize football tournaments for girls to keep their passion going and to encourage them to explore their athletic gift. As an organization we try to step in wherever we see the need for support.

In order to be effective we aim to be in constant dialogue with the respective communities to identify the areas where we can create an impact.