This Girl Can, Sport England’s flagship campaign to help women get active, is turning its attention to tackling the exercise ‘Enjoyment Gap’ – as it reveals 2.4 million fewer women than men enjoy sport and physical activity.
Research released today as part of a new campaign phase, ‘This Girl Can With You’, highlights the barriers faced by women when getting active, with key concerns including safety, fear of judgement and the cost of living.
‘This Girl Can With You’ is a call-to-arms for sport and activity providers to dismantle the barriers that contribute to the Enjoyment Gap. Enjoyment is one of the biggest motivators for people to take part in sport and physical activity – and with less than 60% of women active compared to over 63% of men, closing the Enjoyment Gap is an important step towards tackling the stubborn gender activity gap.
This Girl Can has identified four action areas with the power to dismantle barriers, help women enjoy getting active, and close the Gap.Activities for women must be Social (help women feel part of a community), Suitable (meet women’s needs), Self-Affirming (help women feel confident) and Safe (women must feel physically and emotionally safe when taking part). There is further information on the four action areas at the bottom of this email.
We need to get people thinking and talking about the Enjoyment Gap and what they can do to close it. As a result, we need your help to generate awareness and stimulate conversations.
Together, we can make this launch a success and ensure no woman is left behind. Please find access to a full partner toolkit which includes a host of resources and a summary of how we hope you can help support our campaign. We have also attached suggest social media copy for use on your channels. Please note the strict embargo time of 00:01 28 February – do not share anything on your channels until this time.
How can you help close the Enjoyment Gap:
· Share details of the campaign on your website. Create a new page or update your existing This Girl Can pages, embedding the new films and messages.
· Create a specific email to send to your networks, or add news of the launch into your regular newsletters
· Post on your channels to support the launch and beyond. We will be going live from 8.50am on Tuesday 28th on our socials with our hero film.
· Share the campaign internally via intranet, webinar or face-to-face events so your colleagues can embed our new insight and resources into the work they do with partners.
· Hold a webinar or face-to-face event for your local delivery partners to launch the new campaign across your networks and communities.
By visiting our new website www.thisgirlcanwithyou.com, you can find out more information about the campaign and how to get involved.