Sport England launches This Girl Can

Today at the Women's Sport Conference in London, Sport England announced a multi-million pound marketing campaign aimed at getting more girls and women into sport.

The conference, organised by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, revealed the This Girl Can campaign. It aims to be a celebration of active women across the country and actively seeks to include girls and women of any size, ability or experience. The hope is sport and physical activity is made an enjoyable part of all women and girls' lives.

This Girl Can will be delivered with a range of partner organisations, including  the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, who unveiled their new name today. They will now be known as Women in Sport.

The campaign seeks to address the continual gender gap.  More men play sport than women and this carries over in all demographics, like disabled men and women. First sight of this campaign will be through digital communications channels, with a planned television campaign in early 2015. 

Jennie Price, Sport England Chief Executive, launched the campaign to an audience of more than 300 leading names from sport, politics and the media at an event aimed at creating a shared vision for women’s sport. Minister for Sport, Helen Grant MP and Edward Timpson, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families, were amongst the speakers.

Others included British Fed Cup Team Captain Judy Murray, 2013 Wimbledon Singles Champion Marion Bartoli, BBC Director of Sport Barbara Slater, Rugby World Cup 2015 Chief Executive Debbie Jevans, Sport England chief executive Jennie Price, UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl and RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie.

Government blueprint to get more more women playing sport

The government published a report today on its blueprint to get more women playing sport and the sporting industry to take females more seriously.

The report highlights the campaign to encourage more women to live active lifestyles and take up traditional sports like football and rugby as well as activities like zumba.

It focuses on research published by Women in Sport which found that 43 per cent of girls think there are not many sporting role models for girls.

And over half of boys and girls agreed there are more opportunities for males to succeed in sport than females.

The report by the Government’s Women and Sport Advisory Board also calls for more female sports journalists covering both men’s and women’s sports and called for greater commercial investment in women’s sport by pumping more money into the grassroots for better facilities and equipment.

It also wants the lack of women on the boards of sports bodies to be addressed as well as more recognition for women’s sporting success.

Find out more about the report by clicking here. Follow @ThisGirlCanUK on Twitter