The recent ten day Hertfordshire-wide week of sport for women and girls has been hailed a great success.
The week brought together around 200 different female-friendly sport and physical activity sessions at local clubs, community venues and open spaces all over the county. Supporting Sport England’s national ‘This Girl Can’ campaign, the aim was to raise the profile of female sport in the county and encourage women and girls to become active, be more active or try a new sport. The focus was on overcoming the fear of judgement and other barriers that many experience about getting active.
Numerous partner organisations supported the week that was co-ordinated by the Herts Sports and Physical Activity Partnership (known as HSP). They put on specific sessions, opened their doors and helped promote existing sessions that would welcome and encourage women that were new to sport. Early indication and feedback from partners suggests that there was considerable uptake, discussion, motivation and inspiration around the whole This Girl Can in Herts Week 2015 event. As the dust settles after a busy ten days, numbers are being collated to identify how many women were inspired to join in throughout the week and of those, how many of them were new to sport and physical activity.
A very active promotional plan included press and radio coverage, printed fliers, a radio advertisement and interviews. Extensive social media activity - #TGCinHerts - encouraged considerable interaction with women and girls across the county and our daily photo competition really helped with this.
Jane Parker, HSP’s women and girl’s project officer, was delighted with the success and buzz around the week and feels that it has definitely started to reduce the gap between the number of men and the 2million fewer women that are active in England.
To keep the momentum going from the week of sport, there will be a continuing focus on this target group that includes a partner planning day scheduled for mid-December. For more information please contact Jane Parker (nee Roskilly) at j.roskilly@herts.ac.uk or call 01707 284229.
