The “Changing Gippsland’s Game- Girls in Sport Forum” was a facilitated workshop for girls aged 14-17 to start their journey on becoming the next generation of female leaders, and help GippSport work with the Gippsland sport sector to be more welcoming, inclusive and supportive for women & girls.
GippSport invited 50 young aspiring female change makers from across Gippsland to attend the one-day forum which was held on October 2, 2018 at The Summit in Trafalgar.
The forum, hosted by GippSport, was funded by the Victorian Government’s Office for Women in Sport & Recreation to empower Gippsland girls to share their experiences and co-design with GippSport. The day offered opportunities for girls in their age range to increase participation in sport and recreation within the Gippsland community.
Our guest speaker for the day was Change Our Game Ambassador, Lauren Foote who provided inspirational advice to the young aspiring female change makers.
“I’m really proud to be a Change Our Game Ambassador. It means a great deal to me that young girls have someone to look up to. When I was a kid you didn’t really dream of being a female athlete because that wasn’t a job title that was up for grabs.” said Ms Foote.
GippSport also engaged Dr Erica Randle, Research Fellow at Latrobe University Centre of Sport & Social Impact, to facilitate the day. Dr Randle is leading Sport Australia’s Youth Participation Research project and facilitated the session to help GippSport better understand our community’s needs and empowering the participants to design solutions that can help Gippsland.
We had an awesome day, filled with social sport activities and a number of workshop sessions.
Each of the girls were given a Gippy Girls Can T-Shirt which they were able to wear when they tackled the 3km Monster Obstacle course in teams.
Key learnings from the session included;
- Why youth girls like to play sport
- What the ideal sports coach/ deliverer looks like
- How to best promote new activities/ sports opportunities to this age group
Information collected at the session will be developed into a report, case studies as well as practical resources for sports clubs to use when designing new programs to cater for the age group.
We are also excited that a number of our young changemakers are keen to partner with GippSport in the coming months to implement some new initiatives and help spread the word amongst their peer group.
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