Across the Active Partnerships this International Women’s Day we are celebrating women’s achievements and raising awareness around women’s equality.
Sport England’s recent research has shown that some persistent inequalities have been reinforced during lockdown with Men (31%) are more likely to be regularly active than women (26%). So this International Women’s Day we are choosing to challenge the gender gap and preconceived ideas around women and physical activity.
We want to celebrate women who have found the resilience, adaptability and determination to incorporate movement into their lives despite the numerous challenges or setbacks they have faced in the last 12 months and inspire others who are less active to move more.
The This Girl Can campaign from Sport England highlights how fear of judgement, lack of confidence and time pressures are stopping women from doing something they want to do. We want women everywhere to feel comfortable to be active. We’ll be celebrating women of all shapes, sizes, abilities and backgrounds being active in their own unique ways, below are just a few examples of how Active Partnerships are getting involved.
Active Suffolk This Girl Can Ambassdors are sharing their stories detailing how they have shown their commitment to challenge inequality, question stereotypes and help to create an inclusive world for all.
Active Humber are featuring women with different challenges from across the Humber region, who have incorporated movement into their lives over the difficult winter lockdown, from their Women's Winter Workouts blog series. This includes 84 year old Denise
“I am using the Friendship at Home tablets which have links to exercises. They are fun to do on my own, or when restrictions have been lifted in the past my friend came round and we both did them. We had a laugh doing the different types exercises and dances”
Energise Me is just one of the Active Partnerships encouraging people to share photos of themselves with their hand high to show they are in and commit to choose to challenge.
Image from Energise me
Some Partnerships are also looking to motivate school aged girls to move more, Active Lancashire have organised a week long International Women’s day Festival involving inspiration stories from local women and ideas for home workouts whilst School Sport Managers in Northamptonshire are running a special Orienteering competition for students around the county, themed around a host of inspirational British sportswomen.
Inequalities also exist in the workforce with a UK Coaching report in 2019 highlighting the coaching workforce was 55% male and 43% female with a larger gap in the coach development workforce who are more likely to be male than female (68% male and 30% female). Project 500 and Northamptonshire Sport are two of the organisations using IWD to celebrating the fantastic achievements of women who have followed a path into physical activity and highlighting the importance of a diverse workforce. Project 500 are chatting to University of Winchester graduates about their education and career experiences. Booking & more information is here: https://bit.ly/3dVjFyP
For more information on how contact your local Active Partnership visit
https://www.activepartnerships.org/active-partnerships
