A look back at 2024 with Activity Alliance
As 2024 draws to a close we have taken the opportunity to look back at some of the highlights from the past 12 months.
Leaders from across sport, physical activity and health joined us in December as we closed out 2024 by unveiling our new strategy, ‘We All Belong’. At an incredible event at Lords Cricket Ground we launched a new vision and direction for the coming years as well as our three key ambitions.
The evening rounded off an incredible 12 months, which has seen our team deliver everything from leading inclusive events to standalone research.
At the start of the year England Football launched a new disability training e-learning module. With our support England Football commissioned research to help develop a disability training workshop and toolkit for grassroots football clubs to become more inclusive of disabled people. From it, a new free online course aimed at helping existing grassroots clubs become more confident and inclusive towards coaching disabled footballers was developed.
Get Out Get Active, a national programme, continued to support both disabled and non-disabled people be active together. Made possible by founding funder Spirit of 2012, five locations were awarded funding thanks to Sport England and London Marathon Foundation to continue to change lives. We gave an insight into the difference the programme makes to people’s lives through a podcast series Active Together. Each episode hears from someone on that has seen their life change thanks to GOGA. An impact report, released in July, also showed the staggering power of the programme.
Ahead of the General Election we published our manifesto for change. 'Fight for fairness: Disabled people’s right to sport and physical activity’ was developed with contributions and insight from disabled people, advocates and organisations in the sport, physical activity, and voluntary sector. It set out three key asks for government and is the backbone of a lot of our policy work.
Our research and insight team continue to publish leading reports. Released for the fifth year running our Annual Disability and Activity Survey showed the reality is that disabled people still face significant barriers when trying to be active in their communities. With over 2,000 disabled and non-disabled adults aged 16+ taking part, the report still offers in-depth insight into the day-to-day barriers disabled people face when trying to be active. The team also worked with disabled people, to create a charter that highlights best practice for conducting research.
We once again hosted two major events. The British Junior Para Swimming Championships and National Junior Para Athletics Championships saw more than one hundred young athletes compete at each.
In September we made a collection of training courses available in one easy to access online hub. The Activity Alliance Learning Hub became the new home for inclusive training and is continuously being updated with new resources.
Released in December, alongside our new strategy, new research found the social value in disabled people being active and the societal cost of inequality. It found there is £6,200 social value per disabled person per year if supported to meet the official Chief Medical Officers’ (CMO) guidelines of 150 plus minutes a week. This works out three to four times the value of non-disabled people being active. It clearly highlights the need for us all to improve opportunities to be active, empowering disabled people to get involved in sports and activities in the way they choose.
Our strategic partnerships team continues to work with the sport and leisure sector to instil best practice in their work. Through their delivery of workshops, as well as the support they offer organisations, they continue to make sure that our mission is passed on far and wide. National Governing Bodies of sport, Active Partnerships and many key partners have been able to deliver be more inclusive opportunities thanks to their expertise.
Our work would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of our supporters. We would like to thank them all you for their dedication throughout 2024, we look forward to working to achieve change in 2025.
