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Barriers to the Outdoors: Climbing Community Founder Talks Breaking Through

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There are still barriers to entry for the outdoors. Shelma Jun’s solution is simple: create opportunities that welcome people in. Hear more from Jun in the ‘Finding Space’ film.

Shot in February of this year, Arc’teryx’s “Finding Space” film profiles Flash Foxy founder Shelma Jun. This film jumps right into talking about accessibility in the outdoors, what it means to be part of the outdoor community, and what we can all do to “find our space” outside.

Jun, who founded Flash Foxy — a women’s online climbing community — in 2014, builds events and programs for women in climbing and works to help women achieve equality in the historically male-dominated sport.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t have accessibility right now, for a lot of reasons,” said Jun. “There’s financial reasons — being able to travel, being able to take time off of work. And then there’s social reasons, feeling safe enough to be in places as a queer person or as a person of color.”

Jun’s take: Acknowledge the barriers that prevent people from getting outdoors. Then, create opportunities and welcome people in.

In this short film, Jun talks about making the outdoors more diverse and inclusive, as well as other things like camping, outdoors in the age of COVID-19, and more.

Learn more about Flash Foxy and what it does here.

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