Jasmine Wing sees two sporting organisations collaborating on the behalf of women…
SportsDock, the University of East London sports facility, has signed up to This Girl Can, the Sport England campaign designed to encourage women to take part in sport-related activities. This will result in women-only classes and special trial martial arts programmes taking place at SportsDock in February.
The objectives of This Girl Can match the East London gym’s, with the aim to encourage others to celebrate being active no matter your size or ability and prove that sport can be fun and an enjoyable fragment of our daily lives.
David Cosford, director of sport at SportsDock, explained they had already identified a shortfall in women participating in their programmes.
“There was a sense of frustration with the lack of women partaking in sport at the centre,” he said.
Similarly to Sport England, SportsDock discovered through their surveys that women wanted more privacy when working out: a fear of judgment and worries about appearance far outweighed women’s confidence to exercise.
Like Sport England, the East London gym held focused discussions with women late last year to try tackle the way in which they deliver sport to women, with the hope to encourage more women to get involved.
The primary focus of This Girl Can is a leap away from the usual sporting campaigns. It was found that elite sportswomen and celebrities were seen as off-putting and unattainable by the majority of women. Women at SportsDock expressed similar attitudes.
SportsDock’s advertisement techniques want to mimic those of Sport England, and hope to have photo-led posters featuring real women exercising.
Mary Carr, leader of the project at SportsDock, emphasised that “the campaign doesn’t pin women against women, it’s not a competition”, and added that she believes “the campaign will encourage women to see themselves doing those exercises.”