Chinkilla Women-Led Athleisure and Sustainable Fightgear Brand Empowering Women to Fight Back

1. Chinkilla: Women-Led Athleisure and Sustainable Fightgear Brand Empowering Women to Fight Back In today’s world and generation, supporting and empowering women have risen and come far away and apart from the past traditional, conservative, and restricted norms and nuances type of treatment that have been meted out to them. We all know how women were restricted, made to be at home, uneducated, controlled, and taken advantage of, and unfortunately some women are still treated this way even today. When women started to raise their voices and fight back against all the restrictions and barriers that were blocking them, they came out braver, stronger, brighter, and healthier, and they fought to be completely themselves, redefining the employment industry with their talent, skills, and other contributions. Some women became great innovators, learners, teachers, thinkers, doers, wives, mothers, motivators, inspirations, entrepreneurs, and just flourishing hard-working women in whichever field they took up and worked in. They contribute hugely to the economy and the development of communities which encourages, promotes, and fosters equality as well as equity in the world. Female empowerment is very important and essential in ensuring that our women are made to know, feel, and be safe, protected, happy, accomplished, and educated. Redefining gender roles, breaking down walls, and pushing through traditional barriers, rules, and logic can make way for women to be more open and free, as well as make the workforce and families stronger with their contributions and potentialities. Empowering women to feel safe and protected in the wild, predatory, and dangerous world that we live in even today is a very demanding topic that needs to be dealt with. Women are now freely participating and involving themselves in things that very only seen as ‘manly’. In kickboxing, Muay Thai, and other Martial Arts, for example, women are now deeply involved, but there are still hesitations, fear, embarrassment, judgments, and other restrictions and avoidances that they are faced with. Encouraging women to fight hard against the shells that societies and norms have built around them is very important. Therefore in this article, we will be covering the inspiring and entrepreneurial story and journey of two strong, hard-headed, brilliant women - Dani König and Sarah Barakah, who together banded and started an Athleisure and Sustainable Fightgear Brand Clothing Line in Apparel, Health, and Fitness, in Germany, and which also led to the #JoinOurFight Campaign that took the world by the reins. About Dani König and Sarah Barakah - Co-founders at Chinkilla: The Co-founders of the Athleisure and the Sustainable Fightgear clothing wear brand - Chinkilla, are - Dani König and Sarah Barakah. The two co-founders co-incidentally met each other in the Middle East in Jordan, when they were on their respective work trips in the year 2016. Dani König shared that Sarah Barakah lived with her husband and worked in Amman, Jordan, where the latter undertook Kickboxing courses and it was the first-ever

2. Women Martial Arts Studio in the Middle East. Dani was also in the area filming a documentary - WATERPROOF which was her debut film. Being a pro-martial artist and having a keen interest in that world, Dani decided to check out Sarah’s studio. This was where the two met and were quickly and easily acquainted with one another on shared topics and interests. Upon learning that Sarah was soon going to cross-country to Germany with her husband to the very small-paced town of Weimar where Dani lived, they both were ecstatic. Sarah moved to the town of Weimar and soon looked to open a Women’s Kickboxing Class in the year 2017. The next year in 2018, Dani contacted Sarah and opened up to her about the idea of making a German city tour where girls get interested in Martial Arts and Self-Defence. Sarah was on board with Dani’s proposition immediately and that was the start of the journey towards finding Chinkilla. For more interesting insights and reads, visit The Europe Entrepreneur. About Chinkilla: Chinkilla is all about - “Making the world safer by empowering women to fight back”. This mission statement also became the Campaigning line for their #JoinOurFight hashtag in 2022 years later. The brand was established in the year 2020 and revolves around women’s activewear. Sarah Barakah and Dani König are the Co-founders of Chinkilla and the latter is the Chief Executive Officer. Dani has completed her formal education with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film/Video and Photographic Arts from Bauhaus University and then a Master of Fine Arts in the same field and university. Before meeting Sarah, Dani was a self-employed documentary filmmaker. Sarah lived and worked in Amman, Jordan, Middle East before moving to Germany, where she established the first-ever Women’s Martial Arts Studio and undertook Kickboxing classes. When Dani and Sarah banded together on their German city tour, they traveled from one city to the next attracting a full women following base as they offered Self-Defense and Kickboxing Workshops and Bootcamps. After this, they separated as Sarah moved to Paderborn 500 km away from Dani. But this did not distract them from their vision and goals, they skyped each other and stuck to their mission and passion of empowering women. In the year 2020, Chinkilla was officially established and headquartered in Paderborn, Nordrhein- Westfalen, North Western Germany. In the year 2021, Chinkilla produced their first sustainable lifestyle clothing line in Fightgear for women. Thereafter, Dabi soon joined Sarah at Paderborn, and from there the duo continued to manage the thriving and flourishing start-up business. In the year 2022, on International Women’s Day, the co-founders at Chinkilla started a campaign with the hashtag - #JoinOurFight. This move helped Chinkilla a lot as 25 Gyms in and around the area reached out to the brand’s co-founders. The Gyms reached out to offer

3. 800 women free classes in Martial Arts and Self-Defense courses. Thereafter, around 10% of all sales profits made by Chinkilla are used to fund free Martial Arts and Self-Defense Events for Women in Germany. The brand later rolled out a Streetwear clothing line alongside their initial Fightgear and Athleisure wear. Chinkilla also is an environmentally conscious journey of practicing and incorporating initiatives towards sustainable fashion.