As we celebrate International Women's Day, we shine a spotlight on the Young People's Sport Panel, and their work to increase women and girls participation in sport in Scotland.
Some of the panel members who are particularly passionate about women and girls in sport formed a working group to focus on this important area and they have been invited to attend Fit For Girls solutions workshops over the past year.
Fit For Girls is a programme run by sportscotland and Youth Sport Trust and provides training to sports educators. The workshops aim to develop resources for facilitators in sport, and the panel members were able to share their own experiences of sport at school and feed into the discussions with their ideas.
Eilidh is one of the sport panel members who feels passionately about getting more women and girls involved in sport. She said: “We are really excited to be part of shaping the future workshops and putting young people at the front of them, especially during the Year of Young People.
“We formed our own working group on women and girls sport because of our collective passion for engaging girls and women to be involved in sport in any sense. All of us have experienced the incredible benefits of participating in sport, volunteering, coaching or officiating. Our lives have been shaped by our love of sport and have experienced opportunities we would never have had were it not for our involvement in sport.
"Our vision for the future is to see Scotland achieve sporting gender equality. We are focusing our efforts to stop the big drop-off of girls in sport between primary and secondary school.
"Each workshop has been developed with input from young women and will be led by young females from local schools, mentored by members of the Young People’s Sport Panel.
"These girls’ voices and experiences are going to be heard directly by the people who can make changes and improve their relationship with sport.
“Alongside the Fit for Girls Solutions workshops we have also been involved in other projects to try and break down barriers for girls to participate in sport. In October last year we launched a social media campaign called #unstoppablegirl where we released videos discussing different topics and asked young people to respond to us with their experiences and journeys in sport with the aim of trying to show anyone can be an unstoppable girl and that sport really is for everyone."
Two members of the Young People's Sport Panel, Emma and Kirsty, are part of the Women and Girls in Sport Advisory Board to the Scottish Government, working with Aileen Campbell, Minister for Public Health and Sport.
Eilidh added: "The opportunities for young people to have their voices and experiences heard is incredibly important and powerful, so we are excited about seeing the impact of our work across Scotland. One thing is for sure, 2018 is set to be a really exciting year for women and girls in sport!”
Find out more
Read more about Eilidh's passion for gender equality in sport in her Sport First article Gender Agenda.
Led by sportscotland, supported by Young Scot and funded by the National Lottery, the Young People’s Sport Panel is a national platform created to represent a voice of young people across the country. Applications have now closed to find the next sport panel, and the successful final panel will be announced in spring. Follow the work of the current Young People's sport Panel using #sportpanel.
