Future focus for the Equality Within Sport committee

Back in December 2021, the Equality Within Sport (EWS) Committee held a productive meeting in Rome, Italy. The aims of the meeting were to identify the future focus and membership of EWS, and to agree our long term goals.

 

The meeting started with a review of equality in Europe which members of the group had researched before the meeting. Following the discussion, it was agreed that EWS should continue to focus on gender equality, especially in leadership and participation, as there was still a lot of work to do in this area.

 

However, the members felt that it was important to consider other equality areas as well, as different types of discrimination – like racism, homophobia and ableism – combine to prevent some women and girls from participating in sport.

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As a result EWS members agreed that they would focus on four ‘intersectional’ areas for the next four years, working in partnership with other organisations.

 

These areas are:

 

    • Socio economic;
    • Health;
    • Disability; and
    • LGBTQI+.
 

Intersectionality is important in advancing gender equity in sport because one solution may not work for all women and girls and we recognised that if don’t acknowledge this, we risk building more barriers to true equality.

 

Following on from this the group updated the EWS Standing Orders and identified the relevant skills and knowledge we need from ENGSO Members and experts to address our focus areas.

 

An advert recruiting new EWS Members will be coming out shortly, so if you are interested in joining our group please watch out for this!