Welcome to the Community Sport and Recreation Awards 2024: Diversity and Inclusion Award, supported by Julia Lee
The Diversity and Inclusion Award celebrates clubs and programmes that support under-represented groups through sport, recreation or physical activity. The award celebrates the work that community sport and recreation is doing in this very important area.
Find out more about each of this year’s finalists below:
The British Esports Federation launched Women in Esports in 2019, a pioneering initiative which has been a transformative force within the industry.
Education is a key part of the initiative, aiming to engage with the esports community and address the diversity and inclusion issues that exist within the sport. Women in Esports has fostered a rapidly growing and supportive community that has grown to transcend gender, including people of different sexual orientations, ethnicities, races and backgrounds from esports.
By focusing on combatting toxicity within the sport, Women in Esports has paved the way for people from a variety of different under-represented groups to take an active part in the sport, making it more inclusive for all.
As the official LGBT+ and allies’ network for British horseracing, Racing With Pride has helped support their community since being founded in 2020.
The group has held educational events and created toolkits and documents, including the Transitioning at Work Guidance, to support members of the LGBT+ community across the sport. It also acts as a support network, and provides a platform for the community to have a collective voice in shaping the sport’s future. There is now a permanent exhibition at the National Horseracing Museum promoting the group and raising awareness of LGBT+ inclusion, highlighting its fantastic work.
Racing With Pride has also engaged with LGBT+ networks from a range of other sports, helping to create a wider community promoting inclusion.
Step Change Studios was established in 2017 to help provide opportunities for disabled people to be active through dance.
Since its foundation, Step Change Studios has delivered over 3,100 sessions to a pan-disability population, all the way from two-year-olds to 102-year-olds. The organisation supports people of all abilities and engages them where there is the greatest need, whether that be care homes, hospitals, day centres, SEN schools and colleges, or community settings. Recently, the organisation delivered a dance programme for people of South Asian heritage with sight loss in Birmingham, culminating in their performance at the opening ceremony of the Blind Sport World Games in the city.
The organisation has also received over 280 pieces of media coverage across local, national and international television and radio.
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