The partnership will take a deep dive to understand girls’ personal, social and contextual barriers and will consider insight from lockdown and what can be learned from this. Understanding the barriers of the least active girls and co-creating inspirational, accessible, and meaningful experiences with them will be a key element of the approach. 

Working together with young women, the partnership will co-design a fun co-curricular programme, in which girls can try new activities like dance, boxing, fitness and yoga, and discover the ways they love to get active and stay active. The project will include support to teachers and unique experiences for girls from Sweaty Betty Ambassadors.

Nicola Marshall, VP of the Sweaty Betty Foundation, said:

“We are delighted to be working with the Youth Sport Trust to empower girls to get more active. As a Foundation, we are passionate about supporting girls who have the least opportunity to be active to try new activities to find what they love to get active, and stay active, for life.

“We’re especially excited that Youth Sport Trust will be supporting schools to co-design new activities with girls as we believe that it is girls themselves who have the best ideas about what works.”

The programme will be designed with girls in 12 schools in East London, Leeds and Glasgow over the autumn and winter of 2021, with the pilot being evaluate in spring 2022.

Ali Oliver MBE, Youth Sport Trust CEO, said:

“This is an exciting moment in time to further understand the personal and social barriers that prevent girls from getting active. Physical activity contributes so much to improved wellbeing and through sport we can help young women develop confidence, aspirations, and important life skills. 

“We know that this pandemic has impacted girls’ and boys’ relationships with physical activity and PE differently, and we would like to thank the Sweaty Betty Foundation for supporting us to help those girls, teachers and parents who are most disadvantaged and least active.

“We are incredibly excited to be working with Sweaty Betty Foundation to empower teenage girls to develop strong foundations for a lifelong love of movement underpinned by our learning from Girls Active and working to cocreate with girls’ experiences that are right for them.”

For more information on the partnership visit www.sweatybettyfoundation.org