We had a Virtual mentoring session of HERSPORT, the “last act” in our project that aims to reduce gender and social inequalities using football as the means of sports-based experiential learning in primary education. It is aimed from female footballers to 20 total sport coaches, PE teachers and school leaders. we discussed some interesting data:
-physical activity decreases with age
-Across all age groups, fewer women are physically active than men
-physical activity fell dramatically in all EU countries from 2014 to 2018 (Eurobarometer 2023)
-increased statistical difference between the 2 genders
-there are some barriers to women’s participation in football: funding and facilities, parental and adult influence, sport culture, sexual harassment and abuse, media, absence of female role models in sport.
After an overview about her sport project and female football, we had the great opportunity to share, with Apollo Ladies, the best practices respectively from Italy and Cyprus regarding gender equal football participation in School. Our project manager Spartaco Grieco explained what we have done during these months:
-Alignment workshop, held in September in collaboration with Pink Football and Levante Azzurro and with the participation of 24 female and male players/students;
• From Training to the field: big organization for to have involved over 80 students/athletes in implementation and mixed gender games in which the activities were designed to ensure that both boys and girls could participate equally in sports
• an inter-school football tournament organized by the trained PE educators and School Leaders, a significant event that highlighted the project’s success in promoting gender equality through sports
• dissemination and communication activity
At the end, we had a roundtable discussion to share ideas about the participation of girls and boys in football in primary school, which is the most important factor that can increase or reduce the girls’ participation in football, and how we can change the situation when young girls are not participating in football.
It was really an useful and amazing virtual session and thanks to all for the collaboration and the shared skills!
Hersport is co-funded by European Union