This Girl Can: Chandni's story
For the last month television adverts, social media posts and billboards across the land have advertised Sport England’s latest campaign This Girl Can. It’s a sassy celebration of women everywhere no matter how they exercise, how they look, or how sweaty they get.
The national charity, the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) is supporting This Girl Can to ensure more disabled women can get involved in the campaign.
In January, Sport England’s latest Active People Survey was published. It showed that 121,700 fewer disabled people and 125,000 fewer women are regularly taking part in sport. EFDS believes that the results reinforce the importance of understanding and responding to disabled people’s needs and preferences much more effectively.
Campaigns like This Girl Can will play an important role in increasing the numbers of all active women, especially those living with impairments and health conditions.
Chandni Sony, from west London, has recently taken up regular exercise at her local IFI accredited gym and has found it a revelation, after not prioritising physical activity for most of her adult life.
“When I was younger I was concentrating on other things at the time, my education and my career rather than my fitness,” she says.
“But now I push myself, I go to my gym and I exercise. And I feel so good about it.”
Chadni’s story
Chandni moved to Britain in 1996. Now a tax accountant for a major London firm, her visual impairment meant that during her upbringing in India she spent little time playing sport.
“I come from India and my whole childhood was there,” she tells EFDS.
“I was unable to participate in any sports, whereas had I grown up in this country then maybe I would have had the opportunity. I moved to the UK when I was 13.”
Focusing on her education then career meant that Chandni suddenly found herself last year wishing she was undertaking more physical activity. Her motivations were typical.
“I’m active and fit now, but I only recently over the last year have I decided to be so. I was getting older and was feeling like I was suffering a little and wasn’t exercising at all. So I decided to take up going to the gym and going swimming.”
The challenge for Chandni was finding a fitness facility that suited her needs – “I can see very little, just shapes, dark and light. Colours are also OK, but only during daylight” – that was based either close to her home or her workplace.
“In a gym, the lighting is always too dark. I don’t want or need any physical help exercising, but I do need somebody to help me between machines and help me programme them, because I can’t see the buttons or the dials. That’s all I need.”
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? It is disappointing how many fitness facilities are not accessible or even welcoming, but that is where EFDS’s Inclusive Fitness Initiative comes into play.
“I had no knowledge of the Inclusive Fitness Initiative and had never come across it,” Chandni admits.
“But I was looking for a gym in my local area, other than the mainstream brands. I was told about Westway. So I popped in and the manager took me round and showed me the place, and then asked me if I knew that it was an IFI gym.”
And what did that mean?
“Westway has accessible changing rooms, accessible machines and that every time I need to use the facilities I can be provided with an instructor for an hour, who will help me move from one machine to another. And of course, while I’m exercising they push me harder!
“I thought it was brilliant, so I started going and I’ve really enjoyed it. I know all the staff – Chris, Nick, Mehrad – and they help me whenever I ask.”
That happy discovery of an IFI approved gym opened the door to physical activity and wellness for Chandni, and she now readily admits to becoming a ‘gym-bunny’.
“Initially, I found that every time I went to the gym after work it was really quite busy, and made it hard for me to move around. So I thought about giving up.
“But now I find myself going three times a week, which is quite a lot, and I can see the difference with myself in terms of my body shape.”
Body shape and the desire to change it is one frequent factor cited when people take up exercise for the first time.
And Chandni feels that this This Girl Can campaign, playing out across TV screens and billboards across the country, is only a good thing.
“Women like me, who have a career and don’t have a family, might find exercising a little easier. You can make time. But women that have families must, in my opinion, find it very hard to find the time to go to the gym.
“If women are encouraged to go it’s not only good for our fitness levels but also for our mental stress levels!
“I find that exercise is very good for my stress relief. I work in a stressful environment for an investment bank. I work sometimes very long hours and just sitting there on my office chair doesn’t help.
“If you feel good, if you look good, you will generally be very happy.”
