International Women’s Day: The importance of campaigning for women and girls

International Women’s Day 2023 is a day in which we picture a gender-equal world, free of bias and discrimination. It is a day where we choose to celebrate our differences and work out the steps we can take towards equality.

Active Norfolk are committed to promoting fair and equal treatment in all the work that we do. Through close partnership work and a data-led approach, we aim to support and further the cause for gender equality.

Key campaigns and research focused on women and girls

There are several organisations dedicated to promoting physical activity specifically for women and girls. These companies generally produce key campaigns and research around International Women’s Day.

This Girl Can is an award-winning campaign dedicated to tackling the gender gap in physical activity and sports. Launched in 2015, they have made huge steps in promoting the benefits of physical activity. They’ve done this through putting on classes, running events, and producing key data highlighting the different ways in which women choose to get active.

Women in Sport are a charity who aim to understand the needs and aspirations of the full diversity of women. They strive to understand what motivates women to be active, whilst campaigning for gender equality in physical activity in sports.

Women’s Sports Foundation are another key organisation who aim to help women unlock their full sporting potential. They do this by advocating for gender equality, and providing crucial funding and research to support women’s sports.

These are just three of the many partners and stakeholders we work with in order to help promote gender equality. The research and data produced by these organisations directly impacts on our own work, and ensures we consider gender equality as one of the key components in all our campaigns. This includes our work with Children and Young People, all the way up to working with older populations.

Our work with gender equality

Active Norfolk believe that sports and physical activity should be accessible to everyone, regardless of age, ability, ethnicity or gender. We work with key partners such as This Girl Can to help promote the latest research around women and girls to local groups and organisations, whilst ensuring the data influences directly on our own campaigns. The latest insight and data produced by third parties can be accessed through our Women and Girls Insight section.

Through our Every Move activity finder, we also try and encourage a range of providers to sign up. In doing so, we hope that women looking to get active will be able to find a suitable local activity that best addresses their individual needs, whether that’s a mixed activity or a women-only session.

We have also recently began to establish a Women and Girls focus group. We hope for this group to made up of a range of women from different backgrounds, so that we can hear and share different types of experiences amongst the group. This group will highlight the different motivations for local women to get active, and perhaps more importantly will identify any common barriers to physical activity and sport that could be tackled through our work.

We’ve also recently released a survey for women and girls in Norfolk to get involved with. We’d love for you to take 5 minutes to fill this confidential survey in and help us with our research.

Getting women physically active in Norfolk

The Every Move activity finder has hundreds of activities listed across Norfolk. These include running clubs, yoga sessions, dodgeball groups, rugby clubs and much, much more. There are even some

We are currently putting a lot of work into reviewing the filters on the website, in order to identify any gaps or room for improvements. We review the Every Move activity finder with all focus groups to get impartial opinions and ways in which we can make it better.

There are many available options on the activity finder for women to get started with physical activity and sports. These include:

• This Girl Can Run sessions (Norwich)
• Women’s Only Self Defence Classes (Norwich)
• Women’s Rugby sessions (Swardeston)
• Women’s Walking Football (Bowthorpe)
• Women’s Walk and Talk sessions (Great Yarmouth)
• Walking Netball (Stalham)
• Pregnancy Yoga Classes (Wells-next-the-sea)

To find a local session near you, visit the Every Move website using the link below, with no sign-up required. Alternatively, if you’re a provider offering classes and would like to get signed up, you can visit the same link below and list your activities for free.