History

In 2005, four schoolgirls in Sweden were challenged to create a sellable product for their Young Entrepreneurs project. At the same time, news broke of a rapist terrorizing the neighboring town—brutally assaulting women and leaving communities reeling. Seventeen-year-old Nadja had an idea: what if you could make it physically harder to pull down a woman’s trousers? From that seed grew the prototype for what would become the Shout Out Belt.

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By the end of the school year, the team had designed, manufactured, and sold 4,000 belts—and caught the attention of local media. But it was in 2006, when Nadja (now 18) chose to keep the business alive on her own, that the story really exploded. Articles ran in newspapers, TV crews came calling, and letters poured in from women who credited the belt with saving them from attack. It felt like a dream.

Yet with the spotlight came hard questions: “Why do men rape?” “Why must women protect themselves?” At just 18, Nadja found it overwhelming to defend her vision and confront society’s toughest debates. So the company took a step back.

Last year, after years of reflection and listening to survivors’ stories, Nadja decided it was time to bring the Shout Out Belt back—and help protect even more women. What began as a simple school project has become a powerful statement of agency, resilience, and hope.