On Monday 19 January 2026, we went live with another two-month burst of We Like the Way You Move paid media activity.
To mark the campaign's return, we hosted an hour-long webinar on Wednesday 21 January, in which we shared our plans for early 2026 across paid media, PR and through some exciting new media partnerships.
We also detailed some new resources and editable assets to help our supporters make We Like the Way You Move relevant to their audiences and communities.
The webinar begins with a full-screen title slide showing a group of women stretching and preparing for activity, while smiling, on a football pitch. The title of the webinar, ‘We Like The Way You Move’ is shown next to them. Underneath this is the subheading “January 2026”. Below that are the This Girl Can, Lottery Funded and Sport England logos.
The title slide dips to white and a full-screen video of the webinar host, Amy Crees from Sport England, appears as she begins talking.
Amy Crees says: “Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our This Girl Can webinar.”
Her live video is minimised to the side of the title slide.
Amy C says: “It's great to have you with us. As you may already have seen, our second burst of paid media activity went live on Monday. So it's an exciting time for the campaign, and we're looking forward to sharing our plans for early 2026 with you today. But we did just want to start by saying a huge thank you to you all for engaging with the campaign since the launch in September, and before that, whether it's sharing it on your channels, using the campaign assets, or joining one of our webinars, whatever you've done, we really appreciate your support.”
“Moving on to our agenda today.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Our Agenda for Today’. A woman wearing a bandana is shown taking part in a exercise session in a pool, next to a list of bullet points outlining the running order of the webinar.
Amy C continues: “Firstly, I'll be introducing today's speakers. We'll then move into a quick campaign recap and some highlights from 2025, before looking ahead to how we'll be activating the campaign in the early part of this year. From there we’ll present the new toolkits and assets that are now live on our Campaign Hub. And in response to your feedback, our social team will take you through the new social assets and provide a bit more practical guidance on how to use them and make the most of them. As with previous webinars, please do post your comments and questions in the chat, and we’ll respond to these in the follow up email that will go out next week.”
“Now to some introductions.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Introductions’. Thumbnail photos are shown of the five contributors to the webinar: Amy Crees, Head of Campaign Development & Partnerships at Sport England; Scott Radcliffe, Senior Manager, Partnerships & Business Development at Sport England; Lydia Lane, Head of Social Media at Sport England; Jasmira Bhabra, Social Media Executive at Sport England, and Claire Edwards, Head of Campaign Activation at Sport England.
Amy C says: “So I'm Amy Crees, Head of Campaign Development and Partnerships, and I'm very pleased to be joined today by colleagues from the campaigns and social teams. We have Scott Radcliffe, Senior Manager for Partnerships and Business Development, Lydia Lane, our Head of Social Media, Jasmira Bhabra, our Social Media Executive, and Claire Edwards, who's our Head of Campaign Activation.”
“But before we dig into our future plans,”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Campaign Recap’. The text appears next to an image of a woman holding a child in her arms and screaming excitedly at the camera. As Amy begins talking again, we immediately transition to another slide entitled ‘Campaign Objectives’ which shows an image of a pregnant women outside a leisure centre, and some bullet points regarding the goals of the campaign.
Amy C talks through the slide: “a brief reminder of the core purpose and focus of this current phase of This Girl Can.”
“Since the campaign launched back in 2015, it's inspired over 4 million women to move more. And we've seen organisations and individuals across the country continue to deliver some fantastic opportunities for our women to get active. But we all know there is still work to do to ensure that women of all backgrounds and abilities feel that sport and physical activity are accessible, appealing and possible for them.”
“So from 2024 to 2028, we have four key objectives: To decrease inactivity levels by encouraging women who aren't active yet to try some form of being active; to increase activity levels by encouraging women of low activity levels to be more active; to positively change attitudes by increasing the number of women from all backgrounds who feel that sport and physical activity is for them; and to build a collaborative movement by supporting those who create opportunities for women to get active through collaboration, inspiration, tools and assets. And we're delighted to have so many of you on the call today.”
“Now, a reminder of our women.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Our Women’. A group of smiling women from different ethnic backgrounds are shown enjoying a dance class. A list of bullet points shows the target demographics for the campaign.
Amy C continues: “This Girl has always championed all women and celebrated all backgrounds, bodies and journeys. But we know that the women who face the greatest barriers to exercise often have the most to gain from it. That's why We Like The Way You Move is firmly focussed on uplifting women who are underrepresented in sport and physical activity, and making sure no woman is left behind.”
“We're focusing on women from lower income backgrounds who are also from South Asian Muslim and Black communities, are aged 55 to 74, and are pregnant, and/or have a child under one. Taking a further intersectional approach, the campaign will also aim to meet the needs of disabled women and women with long-term health conditions.”
A new slide appears, showing the campaign timeline for 2025 and outlining the phases and campaigns that have ran throughout the year.
Amy C continues: “Now, before we look ahead to what's coming up over the next few months, a quick recap and reminder of how we got here and some of the campaign's highlights from 2025.”
“So, starting at the left hand side of the slide. We began the year by celebrating This Girl Can's 10th birthday in January. And in February, we kicked off this current phase of the campaign with Raise It, a PR launch activation, aimed at raising awareness of the inclusion gap and shining a light on the barriers our women face to being included in the world of physical activity. This was followed by the launch of Shape It, in March, where we engaged with you, our sector partners, to share the Belonging Starts With Inclusion Insight Report, this helping us collectively identify what actions we can take to narrow the inclusion gap.”
“In April, Studio You, our digital platform of free PE lessons for less active teenage girls, partnered with Nike and co-designed a fantastic, inclusive new range of video lessons with inactive girls to help keep them engaged and included in physical activity. Then in June, we launched Let’s Get Out There for the second year running, and partnering with outdoor activity organisations like Forestry England and parkrun to encourage women of all backgrounds to get active in the outdoors. July then saw the launch of new, safer spaces to move guidance and training, all developed with UK Active CIMSPA and Women's Aid to help gyms and leisure centres recognise and respond to sexual harassment.”
“And next, in September, all our work to raise awareness of the inclusion gap and share our insight with the sector, culminated in a new consumer facing advertising campaign: We Like The Way You Move. Following this, Let's Lift The Curfew came back for a third year in October to highlight the issue of women no longer feeling safe to run outdoors in the darker months of the year, with more than 300 runs and 10,000 runners taking part.”
“And of course, across the whole year, activity across our organic social channels has been always on. Led by Lydia and Jasmira, who you'll be hearing from later.”
A new slide comes on screen, entitled ‘How We’re Activating In 2026’. A pregnant woman is holding a yoga mat and smiling.
Amy C says: “All of which brings us to January 2026, and we're far from done.”
“We're excited to have launched another burst of paid media for We Like The Way You Move across multiple channels on Monday. And this means you'll be seeing the amazing 13 women we introduced you to back in our September webinar again, all getting active in the many different ways that bring them joy. Including Yolanda, who you see here, after her pregnancy yoga class. You'll see we've refreshed the creative in a couple of different ways. Firstly, by making some tweaks to ensure it fits with the season and continues to feel relevant to our women during the winter months. Secondly, by placing additional emphasis on the message that just ten minutes of movement can have immediate positive benefits on mood, energy and confidence, all with the aim of making movement feel achievable and supporting our women to take that all important step from awareness into action.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Where You Can See The Campaign’. Three graphics show examples of the campaign in situ; on Social Media, Television and Out-Of-Home. Social is illustrated by a woman on a hike, with the text ‘We Like The way You Move and the This Girl Can logo overlaid appearing on a phone. Television is illustrated by the first frame of the TV ad, a hand turning on the radio, showing on a television. Out-of-home is illustrated by a woman exercising boxing with the text ‘Gloved Up’ and the This Girl Can logo overlaid on a static billboard.
Amy C says: ““So next, where you can see the campaign. As with our September burst, We Like The Way You Move is a big creative idea that will be brought to life in lots of impactful ways across media channels we've specifically selected, so that This Girl Can is showing up in the places and spaces where our women are.”
“From broadcast to social, digital and community channels. For TV, we’ll be showing you our updated 30-second ad in just a moment, and you'll see we've tweaked the edit to focus more on indoor activities and integrated the message “start with just ten minutes of movement” as the call to action. We'll share a full list of the TV spots with you all next week, and hopefully some of you already saw our launch spot yesterday during Emmerdale.”
“So without further ado, please roll the ad, Jo.”
A full-screen video begins playing. (Lyrics below are shown in italics)
The video begins by showing a kitchen scene. There’s a toaster with bread in it next to a vase of yellow roses.
We see a hand reach out to tune a retro-style radio and then a hand grabbing toast as it pops up out of the toaster. Burnt into the slices of toast are the words ‘This Girl Can’.
(At this point a female voice says): We like the way you… show you care (It’s the start of a reimagining of the BodyRockers track I Like The Way.)
A pregnant woman places a plate of toast on a kitchen table; her two daughters are stood beside it.
Another woman and her daughter play with a pretend medical kit on a bed.
A fast, vertical swipe transition – the first of several in the video – takes us to a shot of a woman walking down a street in a city with a shopping bag.
We like the way you’re… always there
The scene switches to a woman watering flowers at the front of her house.
We see jump cuts of a wheelchair user parking a car, exiting, sitting in the wheelchair and moving away.
Two women roll out and then sit on yoga mats in a living room as the pre-chorus guitar kicks in
But most of all…
The shot then cuts to the wheel of a bike, with a family (mother, father and three young girls) cycling together on a bike pat.h
The rear wheel of one of the girls’ bikes rolls over a This Girl Can logo on the path, caused by a stencil throwing the shadow from the sun.
The camera pans across three women sitting on mats in a hall with their eyes closed during a pregnancy yoga class.
Yeah, most of all…
(There’s a building sense of anticipation as we approach the chorus.)
A group of seven women laugh outside a building, before making their way up some stairs into it.
A woman playing walking football calls for the ball, with her hand in the air.
The wheelchair user rapidly wheels across an indoor court during a game of wheelchair rugby.
There’s a temporary pause in the music before the chorus drops, and we rapidly transition from the three pregnancy yoga women, the women on the living room yoga mats, and the group of seven women in an exercise studio inside the building – they’re all stretching their arms upwards.
(The voice becomes more electronic and powerful as it sings the chorus.)
We like the way you move
A woman swings her boxing gloves at the camera in her garden.
A woman in the outdoor gym swings her legs from side to side on a piece of equipment, before it cuts to a shot of her upper body holding onto a bar while performing the exercise.
The mother of the family on bikes, holding her youngest child, runs alongside her eldest daughter as she rides her bike.
The two women in their home perform hip circles.
The pregnant woman in the yoga class cradles her belly.
A family dance in a communal garden before the grandmother of the family throws a beach ball.
The ball flies through the shot and it cuts to the wheelchair rugby ball being caught by the player with pink hair during her game.
The woman shadow boxes in her garden.
The woman in the outdoor gym uses a shoulder press machine.
The wheelchair rugby player places the ball down on the ground.
The football is passed to the woman on the football pitch, and the camera is following it at pitch level.
The two women in the dance group raise their hands above their head and bump their hips together before the camera focuses on the face of one of them, smiling but out of breath as they put their hands on their knees.
We like the way you move
Quick clips of all the women smiling, with the text “Start With Just 10 Minutes Of Movement’ overlaid.
The screen cuts to a red background with the This Girl Can logo in the centre, #ThisGirlCan in the bottom left corner and the National Lottery and Sport England logos in the bottom right corner.
The video concludes and transitions to a new slide entitled ‘Campaign Creative – Outdoor’. It shows several posters of the women doing activity, with separate headings overlaid; ‘Belly Laugh’, ‘Bliss Full’, ‘Dancing Queens’, ‘Energy Flow’, and ‘Lunchtime Lift’.
Amy C continues: “Now, moving on to our out-of-home, which for this burst will focus on this D6 format with roadside and shopping mall placements in locations across the country where our women live. We have these static versions, as well as these on the next slide, these animated digital versions.”
The images on the different posters zoom in or out gently, and animated text titles appear over the top of each one. These say ‘Belly Laugh’, ‘Bliss Full’, ‘Dancing Queens’, ‘Energy Flow’, and ‘Lunchtime Lift’. The images then transition to a text slide with the heading of ‘Just 10 Minutes’ and a subtitle about how movement boosts mood, confidence or energy. This then transitions to a heading saying ‘We Like The Way You Move’ with the This Girl Can logo below it.
Amy C continues: “As with the TV ad, we've also made these more specific to the season, this time by including winter in the subline and increasing the size and weighting of the just ten minutes message to drive action and shine a light on those immediate felt benefits. We've also introduced some new executions, such as lunchtime lift, which was on the right there, which gives us an opportunity to feature home workouts, an activity that we know can feel more achievable for our women during the colder months. As with the TV spots, we'll be sharing a full list of all the outdoor media placements in the follow-up email, so you can see if there are any located near you.”
“Now, I'm going to hand over to Scott to talk about some of our media partnerships.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Media Partnerships’, showing three screenshots of social media content, as well as several logos; Channel 4 Studio, Amaliah, Black Ballad, Lyca, Sunrise Radio, VoxAfrica and Colourful. Amy’s live video has now been replaced by Scott Radcliffe.
Scott Radcliffe says: “Thanks, Amy. And hi, everyone. I hope it's been a really good start to the year for you. And thanks again for joining us today.”
“As part of our overall media campaign, we launched a number of new media partnerships in October, November last year. And we've been really thrilled with the reaction and engagement on these platforms. These partnerships are all about reaching specific communities and going straight to where our women are, and the channels that they engage with.”
“Our bigger content partnerships include Channel 4, Amaliah, and Black Ballad. With Channel 4 we delivered three fantastic films, each featuring three different women. All sharing really honest and relatable stories of their relationships with getting active. It featured walking, swimming, strength training, dancing, kayaking and netball. And if you missed the content, it'll be going out soon again on Channel 4.”
“Amaliah, if you don't know them, are a brilliant media platform who amplify the voices of Muslim women. And they delivered two wonderful pieces of film featuring their CEO, Nafisa, and her mum, discovering wild swimming. And Rabiah, who started out running. Again, both beautifully filmed and authentic stories which talk about how they started small, and just took it one step at a time.”
“And then to round it off, we worked with Black Ballad, who again produced a lovely piece of content with their editor Jenny, who takes just ten minutes a day to get out, go for a walk. And does so to prioritise herself, and her health. We also worked with a range of community radio and TV stations like Sunrise Radio, Colourful Radio, Lyca Manchester, and VoxAfrica, who featured TGC content and had some wonderful reels from their presenters, all telling their stories of how they get active.”
“And in 2026 we will be releasing some new content with both Amaliah and Black Ballad in the next few weeks. So look out for that. And we certainly hope to expand on our media partnerships with some additional platforms this year. So some exciting times for media partnerships.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘PR Plans 2026’. To the left is an image of a woman swimming, and under the title, we see bullet points outlining the PR Plans for the year.
Scott R talks through the slide: “In terms of, in addition to those, and to maintain the momentum of We Like The Way You Move in the media, and support this January burst, we are also running a PR campaign, that will be working with one of our key audiences, in women who are pregnant and/or have a child under one. This will really help us to broaden the reach of the campaign, and will provide guidance on simple, achievable movement during pregnancy and early parenthood.”
“We'll be working with presenter Michelle Ackerley for this phase of the campaign, who recently had a baby. And she'll be sharing an honest account of her experiences both physically and emotionally. We will also be focusing on Yolanda and Millie who featured in our new creative, and were both pregnant at the time, and they both talk about the benefits of being active during their pregnancies.”
“And finally, we'll be exploring some more media partnerships in this space, which we hope to confirm in the next couple of months as well. So look out for those.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Making The Campaign Work For You’. On the right is an image of a wheelchair rugby player.
Scott R continues: “As always, we appreciate all the support that you showed when we launched in September by liking and engaging with the new creative content. And we want to make sure that we're producing assets that support what you do and allow you to tailor it to your audiences, activities, and location.”
Another slide appears, entitled ‘New Comms Toolkit’. On the left are several bullet points that Scott talks through, and on the right are three small slides of the new comms toolkit.
Scott R continues: ”So as part of this January burst, we've released an updated comms toolkit, which is now available to download from the TGC Campaign Hub. I'm sure that most of you are registered supporters on the hub. But if not, then please take a look at the link in the Q&A section, which Jo will be sharing. You will need to be registered to access the campaign assets, particularly the social media ones.”
“We'd love you to continue supporting the campaign by downloading the toolkit, and using the assets on your own channels. And if you're a delivery organisation, then please use them to talk more specifically about your activities. And make them relevant to your audience and location. The comms toolkit includes: highlights of the campaign launch, as Amy has gone through, and some of our activity from last year, as well as a recap on our objectives and audience, and then a list of assets including links to the new television adverts, downloadable posters, key messaging, the TGC image library, and editable social assets. All of which, are available now on the TGC Campaign Hub. It also goes into a bit more detail around social assets and how to use these, which Lydia and Jasmira are going to talk us through, in a bit more detail shortly.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Helpful Resources’. On the left there are several bullet points Scott talks through and on the right there are four small slides showcasing the different resources he mentions.
Scott R continues: “Over the past couple of years, we have also produced some really useful resources. We hope they have been really useful to you. And we’d encourage you to take another look at those, if you haven't already.”
“So, we released the Belonging Starts With Inclusion Insight Report in March last year. And this report includes, research on our women, which underpinned the whole We Like The Way You Move campaign and really help you develop a much deeper understanding of our women, and the barriers and the motivations they face to getting active. We've also included links to the cultural guidance and understanding guide, as well as guidance on how to engage with community groups, both from our Let's Get Out There campaign. And finally, we've got guidance for group exercise professionals, which we released last year as part of our Reach Up collaboration with EMD UK.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Case Studies’. On the right are two slides of Case Studies of Park Yoga and Active Humber.
Scott R continues: “And then, as mentioned, you can help amplify the campaign and engage with your communities and audiences by using these editable assets we created for you. And we've actually this year, for this January toolkit, included a couple of examples, from partners who we feel have done this, really effectively, really simply, but really effectively.”
“So both Park Yoga and Active Humber did a great job of using the assets in September, and making them really relevant to their audience or location. And just a reminder, if your sport or activity isn't represented in the official imagery of the campaign, then all you need to do is check if the image library has any relevant to you, or just use your own in the templates provided.”
“And I'm now going to hand over to Lydia and Jasmira to talk you through those new editable social assets. Thanks very much.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Social Media – How Can We Get Involved?’. It shows three images from the TV ad, of women participating in activities, as well as an end card with the text ‘We like the way you move, Leicester’, the This Girl Can, Active Together, Lottery Funded and Sport England logos. Scott’s live video is replaced by Lydia Lane as she talks through the text below.
Lydia Lane explains: “Thanks, Scott. And hello, everyone. Hope you are having a lovely afternoon.”
“As Scott mentioned, we've updated our range of editable social media assets, which you can download, you can edit them and use them on your own channels to join in with our campaign. Just before I go into a bit more detail about the type of assets we have available, I wanted to touch on how you could use these social media assets on your own channels during our paid media burst, so you can join in too. So for our delivery organisations, our clubs, our classes, our instructors, you can piggyback on our This Girl Can TV ads, the poster sites, the social ads, make the most of that noise and that awareness we are creating. And use the templates to promote your own classes and offerings across your own social media channels. It's worth mentioning that on the 13th of February, Galentine's Day, and on the 5th of March, just ahead of International Women's Day, we will also reshare a range of your Instagram posts where we have been tagged on our TGC stories on Instagram to highlight the types of women, types of activities women can get involved in around the country.”
“The other thing you can do, is you can use the assets to inspire your followers, maybe those yet to sign up and encourage them to take that step into activity. You can even tailor the asset to your local area. Like for example, you can see here on the slide where I've added in the Leicester word. I'll explain a little bit more, and how you can do that in a bit.”
“For our national partners, it would be brilliant, it would be great if you could do a range of posts that link to some of our key areas of our Campaign Hub. This could be sharing a link to the toolkit, highlighting some of our insights or our learnings, and promoting kind of what assets we have available with your own followers. Another thing you can do is amplify the campaign on your own channels by using the campaign assets to reach out to our inactive women directly, if they also are an audience for you.”
“And kind of finally, an ask for everyone, we’d be really grateful if you could share, like and comment on our own This Girl Can social media posts across all our channels. We're on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Bluesky. The list is endless. And as you know, this really helps us not only reach new audiences, but can also positively affect our algorithms. Obviously in any post, please do remember to tag us in where possible and include the This Girl Can hashtag. This means we can see your posts and engage back with you. Just going into a bit more detail about templates. We understand that you're really busy people, and we tried to make these templates as quick and easy as possible to use, as well as giving you that freedom and flexibility to post at multiple points across the coming months.”
“One of these templates I've used to create this, this asset you can see here at the top of the slide. This is one of our carousel templates where you can edit the place name, or add in your own group name as well, to add in that local feel to it. You can use your own local imagery and obviously add in your own logo as well. We would then encourage you to write your own copy that suits your audience to sit alongside the asset.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘New Social Media Assets’. On the right we can see templates of the new assets, with the titling ‘Start with just 10 minutes’ and ‘We like the way you move’ overlaid, along with the This Girl Can logo. On the left is a list of bullet points Lydia talks through.
Lydia Lane continues: “Moving on to the next slide. Along with our carousel templates, we have some static templates you can see on this slide here. You'll notice there's a bit of a difference between them. There's two sets of headline wording. One says ‘Start with 10 Minutes’ to really help hammer home that messaging for our women just to take that initial step. And the other one has ‘We Like The Way You Move’. You can select whichever suits your copy and your call to action. We also have provided some sample copy in the toolkit, so you can have a look at that to get you started, if you need to. But feel free to write your own and keep your audience in mind as well. Again, you can tailor the static assets by adding in your own logo, selecting imagery from the TGC image library. You can use your own imagery that reflects your activity and your community better.”
“So that you can use these across multiple platforms, the social statics and carousels are available in different formats. We have them in 1x1, 4x5 and 9x16. And if you're wondering where you can edit these templates, we have two options for you. We've developed them in Canva now, which is new for us, and in PowerPoint. We'll be sharing the links in the chat. But please note, as Scott mentioned earlier, you will need to be signed up to our Campaign Hub to access these. The Canva templates can be accessed through a free Canva account, both using desktop and on a Canva mobile app. This makes it even easier to kind of save it off and share it onto social channels.”
“And I'm now going to hand you over to Jasmira, who will take you through how to create assets using PowerPoint, and also some tips on what works best.”
A new title slide appears, entitled ‘New Social Media Assets’. It shows three arrows that step-by-step explain the workflow of using the new editable assets. Below are screenshots visualising the steps. Lydia’s live video is replaced by Jasmira Bhabra.
Jasmira Bhabra says: “Thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm going to quickly take you through how you can use our editable assets in PowerPoint, just in case you don't have a Canva account, or if Cloudflare decides to play up and you need an alternative to get posts out. If I'm telling granny how to suck eggs here, I do apologise. Also, just a reminder that this session is recorded and you can always watch it back if you need to.”
“And as mentioned, our editable assets are available in 1x1 square, 4x5, and 9x16 vertical dimensions. So you can add more images. And in the carousels, you can add more images to suit your post. We recommend up to five images, just for ease of sharing, and with the end card at the end. First of all, you can open it up on desktop or web. The layout remains the same regardless of the template you use. And once you open it, you can select the main image, until the “Picture Format” tab appears and you can go to that tab, and you can obviously see, and you can change the image in the “Change Image” drop-down. You can choose where you'd like to get your image from. Next slide, please.”
A new slide appears. This is a continuation of the previous slide, showing three new arrows and two more screenshots as Jasmira continues to talk through the steps.
Jasmira B continues: “Thank you.”
“You should be able to resize the image so that it fits into your frame and you can customise it. You can see, you can customise it in the frame in the template which you'll be able to see on the left-hand-side, and how it fits and you can shape it around the wording and the logos as well. Once you're happy with the image placing, you can insert your logo in the lock-up just how you like by just selecting the “Change Picture” icon. And this will allow you to be able to do so and choose where you get your logo from. You can also change the end-card of the carousel to customise it, as Lydia mentioned earlier, to your group or organisation’s name. There's an example here with just parkrun. If they ever wanted to do a carousel, how they could have it look for them, and as mentioned earlier.”
“And once you're happy with your post, you can “Export” them out into various forms. So this can be as PDFs for LinkedIn carousels, or “In Pictures” for, say, like JPGs or PNGs. And you can save those in your chosen folder to kind of go out on like Facebook or Instagram. And if all else fails, Google is your bestie.”
A new slide appears with the title ‘Social Media Assets – Dos & Don’ts’. Two lists of bullet points outline Dos and Don’ts for the assets, as well as two templates showcasing the points. Jasmira talks through them.
Jasmira B continues: “I’m now going to just take you through and cover the Dos & Don’ts when creating assets to ensure you can get the most out of them. First, with the Dos, it'd be great if you could use the templates that we provide with the correct lock-up for your logos and co-branding, just to keep everything uniform. And please make sure that the text is clear and readable, and that it will be easy to read, and it’ll grab attention easily. Using high-quality images if you’re thinking of using your own images, sorry. Please make sure that they’re good quality as it can convey your visual message across more easily. And consider the crop in the templates, as where the images are, you can show where the women are being active and being featured, and it gives context to help show where women and girls are, what they're doing, and who they are. Otherwise, it might not seem clear what the image is trying, what you're trying to make the image say.”
“And then in the Don’ts, please don't cover faces and edits with text or logos. Their character and personality comes through in their faces more often than not, and it sets the tone for the image. So covering their faces almost mutes them. Please don't post low-quality images. This can take away from the message that you want to get across and can reduce the authority on what you're trying to promote. Please don't go rogue with co-branding on our logos. It's against our guidelines, and it might be requested to get taken down. And there’s also further guidance in our brand guidelines, which you can download if you're signed up to our Campaign Hub.”
“And I'm now going to hand over to Claire to have a look at what's coming up next for TGC’s future.”
A new speaker, Claire Edwards from Sport England, takes over. She starts with a new slide titled ‘Looking Ahead’. It features an image of a woman playing badminton.
Claire Edwards begins talking: “Thanks, Jasmira. So yeah, I'm going to talk a little bit about what's coming up from This Girl Can over the next coming months.”
A new slide appears, showing a woman going for a brisk walk, along with the title text ‘Looking Ahead’, and a short text box about next steps for the campaign.
Claire E continues: “So this current burst of paid media will continue throughout to the end of March, while the media partnerships with community partners that Scott talked you through, like Amaliah, Black Ballad, Channel 4, they’ll all run up until June.”
“We're now currently in the early stages of planning our media strategy for the coming year, likely with further burst of activity expected around June-July. But we'll update with confirmed plans as soon as we have more to share. In the meantime, we're also working to continue to develop our Shape It plans, so that, as a reminder, is the part of our strategy that seeks to work alongside you, our partners and supporters in the sector, to build a more inclusive system. So we'll be looking at how we can best support you with tools, resources, information, continuing to listen and learn together, so we can look to ensure that women have access to ways of getting active that work for them.”
A new slide titled ‘TGC Place Pilots’ appears. There are three colourful boxes with bullet points.
Claire E continues: “So, we've talked a lot about what's coming next for This Girl Can in terms of national paid media, how we continue to plan, to inspire, motivate, reach women at scale. But alongside that, we're also thinking about what it takes for that inspiration to translate into action, and particularly at a local level. And that's where our This Girl Can Pilots come in. So this is a new piece of work involving a small number of Place-based pilots, designed to explore how the national This Girl Can inspiration can connect more effectively with what's happening locally, so that women are really supported to turn that motivation into action.”
“So in practice, what this will look like is a dedicated Sport England project team working intensely in a small number of local areas alongside women and local partners to design approaches that better align national campaign insight with local opportunities to be active. So they'll be rooted in user-centred design, shaped directly with women from our target audiences in those places, and developed alongside the organisations they already know and trust in their communities.
“So in terms of where we are with this work, we've recently selected our first four pilot places, which are Havant, South Tyneside, Hull and Blackburn with Darwen. Getting to these four places involved a really thorough selection process, which included data analysis to create a shortlist of places, followed by informal expressions of interest submissions and then applying balancing factors to make sure we have a real diverse mix of contexts to be learning from. It's important to say with this work, we're still at a really, really early stage. So nothing has started on the ground yet. And that's deliberate. We're going to be working really closely with these places to design what this initiative should look like in their local context. And that co-design approach applies not just to delivery, but also to the investment mechanism itself. So because of that, while our direction is really clear, place has been identified, we're not actually yet at the point of issuing funding, while formal approvals are still in progress, while conversations have been around investment is still ongoing.”
“In terms of what we're testing, the key thing to emphasise here is that these really are pilots, they're all about learning. So we want to understand how national and local interventions can reinforce each other, how insights from This Girl Can, can shape or enhance local activity offers, and how women can be supported to take that first step, even if it’s just that first ten minutes of activity that you've seen throughout our paid media.”
“So that's all from me. I'm now handing back over to Amy, who's going to close us out.”
Amy Crees takes over again, and a new slide appears with the title ‘What You Can Do Now’. An image of a wheelchair rugby player is shown next to the title, as well as a bullet point list.
Amy C says: “Thank you very much, Claire, for taking us through that.”
“So before we close, a quick summary of how you can get involved and make the most of the campaign now. So the toolkit and editable assets are all live on our Campaign Hub, and the link is in the chat. So you can download and use the assets to let women know about the activities that you have to offer. And as Lydia said, if you're not an activity provider, if you're one of our national partners, for example, please share the toolkit with your delivery organisations in your networks and encourage them to make use of the resources, particularly, as Lydia said, kind of piggybacking on this campaign while it's still live.”
“Next, you can read our Insight Report, Belonging Starts With Inclusion, to learn more about our women and consider what this might mean for your provision. As always, we'd love you to share our campaign across your channels. And of course, if you're not already signed up, please subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with all the latest news from the campaign. And onto our final slide now.
A new slide appears with the title text ‘Thank You’. An image of a woman doing boxfit and smiling is shown next to the title. Underneath the title is the URL thisgirlcan.co.uk/move and the email address [email protected].
Amy C continues: “So, we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to complete our webinar evaluation survey. The link is in the chat. This really helps us to understand what's the most valuable to you, and it will help us to shape future webinars and resources so that they’re as useful as possible to you. We’ll continue to hold these webinars and update you throughout the year. And if there's anything you'd like to watch back from today's presentation, for example, some of the, Lydia and Jasmira taking you through the detail of the social assets, we'll be sharing a link to the recording in the follow-up email that will go out to you all next week, along with links to the toolkit and assets.”
“So that just leaves me to thank all my co-presenters and our brilliant behind the scenes team, Jo and James, and finally, a huge thank you to all of you for taking the time to join us and for your continued support. So bye for now, and enjoy the rest of your day.”
The ‘Thank You’ slide becomes full-screen, and the video of the webinar concludes.
We launched the latest phase of our campaign, We Like the Way You Move, in September 2025 with a nationwide advertising campaign headlined by our punchy new TV advert.
On 17 September 2025, we held a webinar to celebrate the launch, introduce the background and strategy behind this phase, and share all the fresh assets and messaging available for our partners and supporters to download.
The webinar begins with a full-screen title slide showing a group of women smiling and laughing together against a blue sky background. One is carrying a yoga mat and another holding a water bottle.
The title of the webinar, ‘We Like The Way You Move’ is shown next to them. Underneath this is the subheading “Launch Webinar” and “September 2025”. Below that are the This Girl Can, Lottery Funded and Sport England logos.
The title slide shrinks down very slightly and the webinar host, Kate Peers from Sport England, begins talking – her live video is minimised to the side of the still image.
Kate Peers says: “Hi, everyone. Great to see you. And thank you so much for joining us at the This Girl Can We Like The Way You Move webinar. This follows webinars we've held with you last autumn and also again in March. As you know, last week we launched We Like The Way You Move, a campaign that reframes what getting active looks like, championing everyday movement and celebrating women from underrepresented groups.”
“We want to start by saying a huge thank you to all of you who have engaged with the campaign so far, and have shared across your channels. So on the next slide, our agenda for today.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Our Agenda for Today’. A woman wearing a bandana is shown taking part in a exercise session in a pool, next to a list of bullet points outlining the running order of the webinar.
Kate P continues: “We will be sharing with you a reminder of the background and strategy behind the campaign. We’ll introduce our women who feature, we’ll showcase some of the advertising assets, and highlight how you can support with some great assets available to you.”
“But first, let's get started with some introductions.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Introductions’. Thumbnail photos are shown of the three contributors to the webinar: Sport England’s Kate Peers, Strategic Lead for Campaigns; Amy Crees, Head of Campaign Development & Partnerships at Sport England, and Scott Radcliffe, Business Development & Partnerships at Sport England.
Kate P says: “So I am Kate Peers. I am the Strategic Lead for Campaigns here at Sport England. And joining me today are Amy Crees, our Head of Campaign Development and Partnerships, and also Scott Radcliffe, our Senior Business Development and Partnerships Manager.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Campaign Background’. The text appears next to an image of a women hiking in an outdoor setting. As Kate begins talking again, we immediately transition to another slide entitled ‘Campaign Background’ which shows an image of a pregnant women outside a leisure centre, and some bullet points regarding the goals of the campaign.
Kate P talks through the slide: “So great. And then on the next slide, again, over the past ten years, This Girl Can has celebrated women giving movement a go, and most importantly finding joy in getting active.”
“We've seen the sector deliver some fantastic opportunities for our women to get active, but we all know there is still work to do. So from 2024 to 2028, we have four main objectives. The first is to decrease inactivity levels by encouraging women who aren't active yet to try some form of being active. We also want to increase activity levels by encouraging women who are a little bit active, just to become a bit more active.”
“We also want to positively change attitudes by increasing the number of women from all backgrounds who feel that sport and physical activity is for them. And we also want to build a collaborative movement by supporting those who create opportunities for women - all of us today - for women to get active through collaboration, inspiration, tools and assets. And more on that later.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Our Women’. A group of smiling women from different ethnic backgrounds are shown enjoying a dance class. A list of bullet points shows the target demographics for the campaign.
Kate P continues: “So on the next slide, you can see that This Girl Can, and as we all know, This Girl Can has stood for all women celebrating all backgrounds, all bodies and all journeys. But we know that the women who face the greatest barriers to exercise often have the most to gain from it. And that's why this next phase of our campaign will focus on uplifting women who are underrepresented in sport and physical activity, and making sure that no woman is left behind.”
“So we're focusing on women from lower income backgrounds, and also women who are from South Asian Muslim communities, from Black communities, who are aged 55 years or over, and who are pregnant and/or have a child under one. And taking a further intersectional approach, the campaign will also need to meet the needs of disabled women, and women with long-term health conditions.”
A new slide appears, showing the campaign timeline for 2026-26 and outlining the start of each phase.
Kate P continues: “So just a brief reminder of our timeline of this year. So at the beginning of 2025, we kicked off a year of exciting activity, with Raise It in February. And Raise It was a PR launch activation aimed at highlighting the inclusion gap and barriers our women face to being included in the world of physical activity, both practical and emotional. And then this was followed by Shape It in March, where we engaged with you, our sector partners, to share the Belonging Starts with Inclusion Insight Report that is helping us collectively identify what actions we can take to narrow the inclusion gap.”
“And now here we are in the Celebrate It phase with our consumer advertising campaign, We Like The Way You Move, which is unapologetically focussed on engaging less active women from underrepresented groups who are further away from movement.”
A new slide comes on screen, entitled ‘Opportunity For All’. Another image showing a group of women in a dance class is shown next to some bullet point text.
Kate P says: “And the opportunity is for all of us. Collectively, we can put into practice learnings from the Belonging Starts with Inclusion Insight Report because with a deeper understanding of our women, their barriers and motivations, we can consider how we can better help them get active.”
“So with the launch of We Like The Way You Move, we're wanting to reach and engage with as many of our women as possible to encourage them to get active by celebrating every woman's way of moving, and that starting with just ten minutes of being active can boost energy, mood, and improve confidence and sleep. Now I'm going to hand you over to Amy, who is going to introduce the campaign.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Introducing the Campaign’. This text appears next to an image of two women exercising on yoga mats in a home setting.
A new speaker, Amy Crees, begins talking.
Amy Crees says: “Thank you very much, Kate. So we want to take you back to the start, and where we always begin with This Girl Can, and that's with talking to our women. So as always, this is a campaign that has been led by listening to and understanding our women and their lives. And it was the research we carried out back in January of this year that informed these creative principles, which have been so key in guiding and shaping the final creative that I'll be taking you through shortly.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Creative Principles’. It consists of a number of subheadings that Amy talks through in turn.
Amy C continues: “So the first of these is Reclaim Activity. So this is about telling a different story about what physical activity looks like and who it's for. So This Girl Can has always championed all women and all activity journeys.”
“And in this campaign we go a step further, showing some of the least represented women doing their kinds of activity in ways that bring them joy.”
“Next is Celebrate Womanhood. So show women through all the different phases in their life from youth through to motherhood, menopause, older age and everything in between. Next, Make it Accessible. Show that all movement counts, including bite-sized chunks, and making it feel possible and achievable for our women, many of whom are struggling to break the deadlock and get started.”
“And finally, Showing Movement is a Gateway to Feeling Good. So our women know that movement is good for them. But what came through loud and clear in the research is that for many of our women, exercise can feel like another thing on an already very long to-do list. So this campaign has a key role of communicating what the immediate benefits are from better mood, boosted energy, even better sleep.”
“And as you may well have seen, this messaging is integrated across much of our new creative.”
A new title slide appears. The text ‘We Like The Way You Move’ appears centrally as a bold heading, with the subheading underneath ‘A celebration of how our women move through life including the many ways they get active’.
Amy C continues: “So ultimately, all of this insight led to the next chapter of This Girl Can. We Like The Way You Move is a celebration of how our women move through life, including the many ways they get active. It's based loosely on the Bodyrockers song, which many of you might remember from the early 2000s,”
“I Like The Way You Move, but we've reclaimed it in the most This Girl Can way possible. Moving away from a male gaze to a joyful celebration of women, we've changed the ‘I’ to ‘We’. We've re-recorded the song with an amazing up and coming female artist, and we've changed the composition to be more reflective of our women.”
“We Like The Way You Move is, at its heart, about helping the least active women from groups facing the greatest barriers to feel they can get active too. The campaign has already created significant media coverage, and as we step into this new, exciting chapter, we want to work closely with all our partners and supporting organisations to tackle inequalities and create a world where all women can get active.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Our Women’, next to an image of a woman kicking a football while another woman smiles in the background.
Amy C continues: “So, moving on to our women. So, before we dive into the creative, we want to introduce you to the wonderful women whose stories, as always with This Girl Can, are really the beating heart and soul of this campaign. So firstly, we felt it was important to share how we approached our casting. So we carefully street cast 13 women to show a broad spectrum of women and activities.”
“So while our budget and space were finite, we took care to ensure representation from diverse communities across the country and to ensure a range of accessible activities and sports are represented, from simple walking through to badminton, swimming and team sports including wheelchair rugby and walking football. Each woman was chosen for her unique story and relatability, and it really is their stories, their passion and joy, which you'll see coming through across the campaign creative.”
A new slide appears. The text ‘Our Women’ remains in the top left, with separate photos of four different women taking up the majority of the screen. On each photo is the woman’s name and a short subheading about their relationship with physical activity.
Amy C talks through the slide: “So introducing our women in no particular order. Amanda is 48 and is a single parent to her 12 year old daughter. She also cares for her father, who has dementia. She really enjoys martial arts and boxfit and she's been focusing on weight-bearing activity to counteract the muscle mass loss she's been experiencing as part of her perimenopausal journey.”
“She loves to exercise as it supports her wellbeing and helps her to manage her stress, especially as a carer and a single mum. Then we have Ami is 39, and she uses movement including hiking, home workouts and strength training to help her manage a debilitating autoimmune condition that saw her unable to walk when she was younger. She's a huge advocate of movement because it's such a massive part of her recovery journey and helps her to manage her health condition.”
“Then we have Nagwa. She is 67, retired and widowed. She lives with one of her three children, son-in-law and grandchildren. She loves walking, being in nature and really enjoys using the outdoor gym equipment at her local park. She finds exercising outdoors gives her clarity and a sense of strength. Then we have Wendy. Wendy is 60 years old and she lives in Sutton Coldfield.”
“She's a mother and grandmother. And Wendy talks very candidly about having a very difficult year during Covid when sadly, her father died and her relationship with her partner broke down. She says that her walking football community was an amazing source of support and strength at the time, and that sport gives her a wonderful sense of sisterhood and accomplishment, really supporting her mental health.”
A new slide appears, similar in format the previous slide but showing five more women.
Amy C continues: “So on to the next slide. We have Millie now. Millie’s 32 and from Grimsby. She has a daughter and is pregnant in the campaign but since then she has welcomed a healthy baby boy, Jude, into the world. Millie loves swimming and regularly swam through her pregnancy. Elaine is 72 and she joined her local badminton class when she moved to Gravesend earlier this year as a way of meeting new people.”
“Elaine also goes hiking with her neighbour Tony. Sara is 32 and lives with her husband and three children, aged 18 months, four and six. She enjoys staying active through swimming, badminton and cycling with her family. Sara says exercise helps her to stay fit, boosts her energy and is really important for her mental wellbeing. Next, Bharti, she's 74, she's a mother and grandmother and she was widowed 13 years ago.”
“She loves walking with friends and attends weekly senior yoga classes at her local temple. And at home with her sister-in-law, she regularly does laughing yoga. She says exercise keeps her motivated and positive and in her own words, it really keeps her going.”
“Next, Jemma is 45. She has a really infectious energy and loves anything blue. She's neurodiverse and has an autistic son, and for her, aqua aerobics is a really stable part of her life. She loves the joy and energy boost that she gets from going to classes every week.”
Another slide appears, showing the next four women featured in the campaign.
Amy C continues: “Next, we have Sheri. Sheri is 68. She's a retired Ghanian woman living in Chigwell, Essex, with a large family. Her days are very family-centred, looking after two of her grandchildren, which involves lots of playtime, running around with them.”
“She walks 3 to 4 times a week and also goes to Zumba Gold classes. She finds Zumba helps manage her arthritis and joint stiffness and brings her lots of joy. Next we have Sonny. Sonny is 22. They work part time as an illustrator whilst also studying at university. When becoming a wheelchair user, they thought they'd lost the ability to enjoy sport, until they discovered wheelchair rugby.”
“They play in a mixed team for Harlequins, and Sonny finds playing wheelchair rugby keeps them grounded and fulfilled. Moving on to Irisha, she's 31, she's a mum of two and is ten months postpartum. She does baby yoga at home with her son and attends soca dance classes every week with her daughter. The class is a real community. She describes it as being like a family.”
“She's been going since she was 14 and now takes her daughter and niece with her. And that sense of community and amazing energy you get from the class really comes through in the photography. And last but by no means least is Yolanda. She's 37 and she has a 13 year old daughter and is pregnant in the campaign, but has also since welcomed a baby boy into the world.”
“She's a reflexologist and her hobbies include dancing and pregnancy yoga classes. She finds keeping active is great for her mental health, as well as her pregnancy. So this is the full cast. Seven appear in the ad and the other six in our photography.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘A Campaign For Women, Made By Women’. Four thumbnail photos show different creative artists involved in the campaign.
Amy talks through them in turn: “So moving on to the next slide, this is not only a campaign made for women, it's also made by women.”
“And we wanted to introduce you to some of the brilliant women behind the camera. So our director is Priya Ahluwalia. She's a talented filmmaker. She's produced films and commercials for brands such as Microsoft, Vogue, Nike and Levi's. And as well as being a filmmaker, she's also a very successful fashion designer. When she was pitching for the job, she said the ethos of This Girl Can is deeply personal to her.”
“She's half Indian, half Nigerian and grew up on a council estate in London. She talks about seeing firsthand how health and joy can become distant dreams for women when movement just doesn't feel like it's accessible, achievable or welcoming. Next is Morgan. Morgan is a rising singer-songwriter, blending pop, R&B and reggae influences. She's done collaborations alongside Rudimental and Anne-Marie, and she has over 80 million streams of her own work.”
“Morgan is fast becoming one of the UK's most exciting new voices, and her upcoming EP Emotional Gangster drops next month, followed by a UK headline tour. So she's very current. Next, Amy McKnight. Amy is a composer and sound designer with over 15 years of experience crafting immersive soundscapes for TV, film and advertising. Her work includes scores for BBC's Phoenix Rise and Netflix's Rebel Cheer Squad, along with campaigns for brands like Nike and Chandon.”
“And finally, we have Madeleine Penfold, or Maz as she likes to be known. Maz has a passion for capturing the immense potential of sports to achieve social change. She tells powerful stories authentically, creating portraits and films that engage audiences and feel alive. She brings out natural, authentic best selves amongst the people she takes pictures of, and she's worked across commercial, charity and personal stories.”
“So next we're going to take you through the campaign creative that all of these talented women helped to develop.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Campaign Creative’. A woman in shown carrying a yoga mat. As Amy starts talking, the slide quickly transitions to a new one entitled ‘We Like The Way You Move – TV Advert’, with the heading shown above a still frame from the advert.
Amy C continues: “So, firstly, we've got the ad which, our TV advert launched last Wednesday, the 10th of September. It has aired on the ad breaks of high profile TV shows, including the National TV Awards, Coronation Street, Emmerdale and This Morning, as well as across paid social and on our organic channels.”
“So hopefully you've seen it. But either way, please turn up your volume and enjoy our full 60-second TV commercial.”
A full-screen video begins playing. (Lyrics below are shown in italics)
The video begins by showing a kitchen scene. There’s a toaster with bread in it next to a vase of yellow roses, and we hear birdsong.
We see a hand reach out to tune a retro-style radio and then a hand grabbing toast as it pops up out of the toaster. Burnt into the slices of toast are the words ‘This Girl Can’.
(At this point a female voice says): There’s so many things we like about you. (It’s the start of a reimagining of the BodyRockers track I Like The Way.)
A fast, vertical swipe transition – the first of several in the video – takes us to a shot of a woman walking down a street in a city with a shopping bag.
The scene switches to a woman watering flowers at the front of her house.
We just don’t know where to begin
We see a scene of a family under a big tree in a grassy area on a housing estate. A man sits with a young boy on a rug; four women throw a bean bag between them.
The fast-paced transitions continue as we see two smiling women descending stairs in a house and another woman walking down a shopping street.
We like the way you… show you care
A pregnant woman places a plate of toast on a kitchen table; her two daughters are stood beside it.
Another woman and her daughter play with a pretend medical kit on a bed.
A woman walks briskly in the park; this quickly changes to a shot of the pregnant woman from before, walking down a residential street beside her daughter.
We like the way you’re… always there
We see jump cuts of a wheelchair user parking a car, exiting, sitting in the wheelchair and moving away.
Two women roll out and then sit on yoga mats in a living room as the pre-chorus guitar kicks in.
But most of all…
The camera pans across three women sitting on mats in a hall with their eyes closed during a pregnancy yoga class.
Yeah, most of all…
(There’s a building sense of anticipation as we approach the chorus.)
A group of seven women laugh outside a building, before making their way up some stairs into it.
Two girls write on a white children’s easel in a kitchen as their mum looks on. ‘This Girl Can’ is spelt out in plastic magnetic letters above where they’re writing.
There’s a temporary pause in the music before the chorus drops, and we rapidly transition from a woman punching her boxing gloves together in a garden to shots of the three pregnancy yoga women, the women on the living room yoga mats, and the group of seven women in an exercise studio inside the building – they’re all stretching their arms upwards.
(The voice becomes more electronic and powerful as it sings the chorus.)
We like the way you move
(The guitar-based backing track returns.)
The wheelchair user rapidly wheels across an indoor court during a game of wheelchair rugby, before we see a close-up of a woman tying a bootlace on an outdoor artificial pitch; this then pans up and the woman runs off as a whistle sounds.
The women in the studio take part in a dance fitness class, raising and touching their knees and then twirling in pairs as the singer vocalises.
A woman throws a beanbag on the grassy area we saw earlier, before we see the woman who was watering her flowers at the start of the video throwing a beach ball with two young boys in her back garden.
We like the way you move
A woman playing walking football calls for the ball, with her hand in the air, with the ball then passed to her and the camera following it at pitch level.
We like the way you move
A wheelchair rugby player rolls into an empty sports hall.
A pregnant woman performs warrior pose in a yoga class.
A group of woman playing walking football put there hands together in a huddle and then cheer and raise them to the sky.
Two women sitting on yoga mats in their home raise their arms to the ceiling and laugh.
A woman swings her legs on a cross trainer in an outdoor gym.
A group of women dance in a dance class, with one woman shaking her hips and raising her hands above her hear, before it cuts to the same woman double high-fiving another woman in the class.
The walking footballers cheer after a goal is scored.
The wheelchair rugby player pushes off to start the game and the camera focuses on the wheel of her chair.
The shot then cuts to the wheel of a bike, with a family (mother, father and three young girls) cycling together on a bike path.
The rear wheel of one of the girls’ bikes rolls over a This Girl Can logo on the path, caused by a stencil throwing the shadow from the sun.
The dancing women’s feet are seen dancing.
The walking football’s woman’s feet are seen walking and kicking the ball.
We like the way you move
A woman’s feet are seen skipping, before the camera cuts to her upper body enjoying skipping while doing a Boxfit workout in her garden.
The woman in the outdoor gym swings her legs from side to side on a piece of equipment, before it cuts to a shot of her upper body holding onto a bar while performing the exercise.
The mother of the family, holding her youngest child, runs alongside her eldest daughter as she rides her bike.
The two women in their home perform hip circles.
The pregnant woman in the yoga class cradles her belly.
A family dance in a communal garden before the grandmother of the family throws a beach bal.
The ball flies through the shot and it cuts to the wheelchair rugby ball being caught by the player with pink hair during her game.
The woman shadow boxes in her garden.
The woman in the outdoor gym uses a shoulder press machine.
The wheelchair rugby player places the ball down on the ground and rolls away.
The walking football team high-five in unison.
The two women on yoga mats in their home clap their hands.
But most of all...
The two women in the dance group raise their hands above their head and bump their hips together before the camera focuses on the face of one of them, smiling but out of breath as they put their hands on their knees.
Yeah...
The cycling mother and two of her daughters and filmed smiling in front of a wall.
Most of all...
The pregnant woman previously seen in the yoga class is now filmed smiling with her elder daughter at home as they dance in their kitchen.
The walking football team pose for a team photo, all smiling and laughing.
The two women doing yoga at home smile for the camera.
The woman using the outdoor gym sits back on the shoulder press machine and smiles broadly.
The women in the pregnancy yoga class pose for a photo with their instructor.
The woman in her garden finishes shadow boxing and smiles/laughs at the camera.
We like the way you move
The wheelchair rugby player holds the ball in her lap and high-fives a teammate.
The screen cuts to a red background with the This Girl Can logo in the centre, #ThisGirlCan in the bottom left corner and the National Lottery and Sport England logos in the bottom right corner.
The video concludes and transitions to a new slide entitled ‘Campaign Creative – Outdoor’. This shows a large digital billboard from the campaign in Liverpool city centre, with two buses driving past. The billboard shows a series of images of the women from the campaign.
As Amy Crees talks through the slide, we see the billboard animate, with some text appearing over the images, and a title slide appearing on it saying ‘We like the way you move, Liverpool’.
Amy C explains: “So, as well as TV and social, we also have out-of-home advertising in multiple locations across England. So this is one of our large format digital executions that allows us to speak directly to a place, in this case Liverpool. So around 40ft by ten foot, this is the largest standard billboard size in the UK and is really designed for maximum impact.”
“And we have several of these large formats in other cities, including Coventry, Hull, Southampton and Birmingham. And we're very happy to share a full list of the locations.”
A new slide appears, still with the same title of ‘Campaign Creative – Outdoor’. An large, static billboard is shown. This features a gallery of images of the different featured women, shown as 7 separate panels from left to right. The first 6 panels are each overlaid with a single word: ‘Begin’, ‘Bounce’, ‘Balance’, ‘Belong’, ‘Buzz’, ‘Breathe’, and the final panel shows the This Girl Can logo on a t-shirt, underneath the text ‘We like the way you move’.
“Moving on. So this is the static version; as you can see, in this format, we have the opportunity to showcase several of our women to really help land the message that we're celebrating every woman, whoever you are, and however you want to move.”
A new slide appears, still with ‘Campaign Creative – Outdoor’ as the heading. This shows five different posters from the campaign, featuring images of the women and the following slogans: ‘Climb High’, ‘Rise Shine’, ‘Up Lifted’, ‘Team Spirit’, ‘Power Up’.
Amy C continues: “Next, we have the D6s. So, to give you an idea of size, these would typically appear at a bus stop, and in these versions we use a different mechanic to show the joy of activity and the feeling it creates afterwards, reminding our women of the immediate benefits of movement.”
A new slide appears. This is a continuation of the previous slide, showing five new posters with the slogans ‘Belly Laugh’, ‘Energy Flow’, ‘Bliss Full’, ‘Rock Star’, ‘Ripple Effect’. We quickly see another slide with five more posters, with the slogans ‘Joy Ride’, ‘Higher & Higher’, ‘Right Hooked’, ‘Dancing Queens’, ‘Net Gains’.
Amy C continues: “So you'll notice in the next, if we move on to the next one thank you, you'll notice in these versions we also incorporate a ‘just ten minutes’ message to drive home the message that ten minutes can really make a difference, and highlighting some of the specific benefits, including more energy, better mood, and greater confidence. So all of the women who feature in the campaign have their own version in this format based on their particular activity, which means we can feature a whole range of activities and even introduce additional characters like Sara's children and Irisha’s soca community.”
A new slide appears with the title ‘Campaign Creative – Animated Social’. This shows three different short animations. Each animation features photos of one of the featured woman taking part in their activity, overlaid with short text headings, and finishing with the This Girl Can logo and ‘We like the way you move’ title text.
Amy C continues: “And then finally, we wanted to show you some of the versions we've created for social media. So all social will direct women towards our refreshed website, where there are tips on getting active, ideas of ten minute activities they can do straight away, inspiring stories of all our women's activity journey and lots more. So I'm now going to hand over to Scott to talk about where else you can see the campaign.”
A new speaker, Scott Radcliffe from Sport England, takes over. He starts with a new slide titled ‘Where You Can See The Campaign’. This features a range of icons within bubbles, describing a number of different distribution channels for the campaign.
Scott R talks through the slide: “Thank you, Amy. And good morning, everyone. We Like The Way You Move is a big creative idea. And this will be brought to life in lots of impactful ways across media channels, that we've specifically selected so that This Girl Can is showing up in the places and spaces that our women are, from broadcast channels to social, and digital channels to community channels.”
“Just a few of these spaces, though not all are highlighted on the slide here. So hopefully, you've already seen or heard some of the ads already, but we have created hundreds of assets for these channels, that we've given you a flavour of today.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Media Partnerships’. Three logos are featured: Channel 4 Studio, Amaliah, and Black Ballad.
Scott R continues: “Moving on to the next slide, we are also working across some very exciting media partnerships.”
“And we just wanted to highlight some of the main ones that we're working on at the moment. Firstly Channel 4. So they have a really strong reach, and affinity with black women who are 17% more likely, and South Asian women who are 8% more likely than the average UK adults, to call Channel 4 their favourite.”
“So taking this into account, they have real credibility of delivering inclusive stories at scale, which is really exciting. Amaliah, which is a leading media platform amplifying the voices of Muslim women through articles, podcasts, videos, events and brand partnerships. And they've got an amazing reach of about 6.2 million monthly, through digital channels and a contributor network of 500 plus.”
“And finally, we're working with Black Ballad, who are dedicated to empowering Black women through original content, events and community experiences. And we're currently developing these activations, which run over two bursts into the new year. And just seeing some of it come to life at the moment, is really exciting. We've actually shooting some of the imagery over the next few days with Channel 4. So do keep a lookout for that.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘How You Can Support’. Next to the text is an image of a woman playing wheelchair rugby. As Scott starts talking, the slide changes to a more detailed slide also entitled ‘How You Can Support’. This includes a list of bullet points, and some accompanying imagery around the campaign toolkit and social media assets.
Scott R continues: “And then moving on to how you can support the campaign. So if we go to the next slide, I guess the most important thing is, please share the campaign. We’d love you to support it by downloading the comms toolkit, which we've developed specifically for you, and using the assets to promote the campaign on your own channels.”
“And if you support and work with other organisations in your network, please make them aware of the toolkit, and encourage them to share the campaign on their channels too. It's available in our This Girl Can campaign hub. So please, I'm sure most of you are registered already, but please do go and take a look at it.”
“It includes the following. So, the campaign overview details, obviously, of our audiences, our objectives. It goes into the key messaging, and provides you with long and short copy. So, when you are looking at your social posts or newsletters or website, you've got some guidance for that. It provides a link to the TVC advert which you've just seen, which is on our YouTube channel.”
“And then there's a range of campaign assets, social media, posters, email signature banners, all for you to use as part of the campaign toolkit. And then some links to some really helpful resources, which I'll take you through on the next slide.”
Another slide appears, still with the title ‘How You Can Support’. This slide has another bullet point list outlining additional resources, along with accompanying imagery.
Scott R continues: “So yes, firstly, please make sure you read these if you haven't done so already.”
“The Belonging Starts With Inclusion Insight Report. And consider how the insights and information affect you and your work. We brought that out earlier in the year. So I'm sure a lot of you have seen that already. But if not, please do go and take a look at it. This is the research which underpins the whole We Like The Way You Move campaign, shining light on how we can encourage our women to get active and all the conditions we should consider for change.”
“It'll really help you, I think, develop a deeper understanding of our women, and the barriers and the motivations that they face to getting active. There's a range of other resources available on the campaign hub, which we hope will support you with your efforts in engaging our women, and providing more insight.”
“These include, the barriers and motivations of our women, cultural guidance, engaging community groups guidance. And then most recently, we've just brought out guidance for group exercise professionals, called Reach Up, which is in collaboration with EMD. So please do take a look at those.”
A new slide appears, still entitled ‘How You Can Support’, but with a new bullet point list and imagery describing the social assets that are available to share.
Scott R continues: “And then on the next slide, just a really quick snapshot of some of the editable social assets that we've created for you.”
“So, we brought out, a range now, and we'll be bringing out more in the new year. But the ones that you can see some snapshots of on the screen include social statics, and carousels in a couple of different formats, which you'll be able to edit, create your own organisation’s lockup logos with the TGC logo, and on the carousels, which is below the one at the bottom, you'll actually be able to edit the location.”
“Very similar to what we've done with the out of home ad. So, you know, We Like The Way You Move Newcastle, Liverpool, etc., which is fantastic for organisations like Active Partnerships. So please take a look on what's offered on the TGC campaign hub and we'll make sure to share a link with you in the chat.”
A new slide appears with the title ‘What You Can Do Now’. It features an image of a woman playing wheelchair rugby, and some text outlining action points.
Scott R talks through the slide: “So, just to reiterate on the next slide then, really importantly, please share the campaign, through your channels and through your networks. Download the comms toolkit. Use the assets to promote the campaign. And really just shout about it, to anyone you work with, colleagues, etc., and encourage them to do the same.”
Scott R: “And then have a look at both the insight and the resources to make changes where necessary. Consider how this affects your work. And just make sure that, you know, you're aware of all the insight into their lives and the practical guidance, on cultural sensitivities to consider, where relevant. So thank you very much.”
“And I'm now going to hand over to Kate.”
A new section title slide appears, entitled ‘Looking Ahead & Next Steps’. It features an image of a woman playing badminton.
Kate Peers begins talking: “Great. Thanks so much, Scott. And thanks everyone. It was great seeing some of those emojis come through as Amy was taking us all through the creative. It's had a great response so far.”
A new slide appears, showing a woman going for a brisk walk, along with the title text ‘Looking Ahead’, and a short text box about next steps for the campaign.
Kate P continues: “So thanks. Thanks very much. Just in terms of looking ahead, this burst of the campaign will continue throughout the autumn.”
“And then we're going to have another burst of paid advertising going live mid-January 2026 with a range of new assets that we'll be sharing with you. So more information will be coming to you over the next few months. Just keep an eye out for that.
A new slide appears with the title text ‘Thank You’. An image of a woman doing boxfit and smiling is shown next to the title. Underneath the title is the URL thisgirlcan.co.uk/move and the email address [email protected].
Kate P continues: “We're nearing the end of the webinar.”
“We just want to thank you again for your continued support, and a huge thanks to all of those who asked questions in the Q&A in the chat. As Jo mentioned in that chat, we'll be sending an FAQ document with answers, with the recording. Also just to highlight what Jo’s linked through, the link through to the campaign hub, as well as the comms toolkit that Scott mentioned as well.”
“So those are ready for you to have a look at right now. Please do continue to engage with and share the campaign across your channels, and download and use the resources Scott just took us through. And think about your own provision and how we can ensure that we are making it as inclusive as possible.”
“Together, we're helping more women feel like they belong in the world of physical activity and really experience its immediate benefits and really looking for a world of more women being active. Thank you all so much for joining us today, and we'll be sending around the recording shortly. Thank you.”
The ‘Thank You’ slide becomes full-screen, and the video of the webinar concludes.
The latest chapter of our groundbreaking This Girl Can campaign, Belonging Starts with Inclusion, launched in February 2025.
Together with you – our partners, the physical activity sector, and everyone who champions women getting active – we’re determined to create a world where every woman can get moving in a way that brings them joy.
We hosted a webinar on 27 March 2025 in which we shared the research and insights that have informed this phase of our campaign, and introduced a communications toolkit to help you spread the message.
The webinar begins with a full-screen title slide showing a woman smiling while using a cross-trainer in a gym setting. The title of the webinar, ‘Research & Insights Webinar’ is shown next to her. Underneath this are the This Girl Can, Lottery Funded and Sport England logos, along with the date ‘March 2025 and time ‘11am-12pm’.
The title slide shrinks down very slightly and the webinar host, Kate Peers from Sport England, begins talking – her live video is minimised to the side of the still image.
Kate Peers says: “Hi everyone. I'm Kate Peers, Strategic Lead for Campaigns at Sport England. Thanks very much for joining us for This Girl Can's Research and Insights webinar. This follows the webinar we held last November where we introduced the strategy of this new phase for This Girl Can, ‚’Belonging Starts with Inclusion’. And we've heard from you that you would like to keep updated on campaign plans, as well as having tangible resources and insights.”
“So today we'll be taking you through our latest research that is informing this next phase of the campaign. We’ll highlight the insights on the next slide that we have gained on the motivators and the barriers that impact our women's participation in physical activity and what this may mean for all of us.”
As Kate is talking, the screen transitions to the next slide, entitled ‘Agenda’. An image of two women taking part in an exercise class in a fitness studio is shown next to a list of bullet points outlining the running order of the webinar.
Kate P continues: “And we'll also give an overview of resources that will be made available, and how together we can help create more opportunities for women.
“And we are very pleased to be joined by guest speakers from Active Wellbeing Society and Saathi House, who will share how they have worked with local organisations to create and promote on-the-ground experiences for women. And then we'll finish off with next steps. Unfortunately, we won't have time for a live Q&A today, but please do add any questions into the chat and we'll follow up with responses.”
A slide titled ‘Introductions’ appears on screen, featuring thumbnail photos of the seven contributors to the webinar: Sport England’s Kate Peers, Strategic Lead for Campaigns; Nilen Bhatt, Head of Behavioural Insight at Sport England; Steph Phillips, Strategy Director at TGC Collective; Scott Radcliffe, Business Development & Partnerships at Sport England; Kate Dale, Director of Marketing at Sport England; Tiffany Joseph, Centre Manager at Saathi House and Owner of MIU Wellness Hub; and Ammaarah Faisal, This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead in Birmingham.
Kate P continues: “First, some introductions. So joining me today are Nilen Bhatt and Steph Phillips who will be taking us through the insight. We also have Scott Radcliffe who will be covering the resources section. And Kate Dale will be interviewing our guest speakers who are already doing incredible work to support women being active. So we have Ammaarah Faisal, This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead in Birmingham, based at the Active Wellbeing Society, and Tiffany Joseph, the Centre Manager at Saathi House and proud owner of MIU Wellness Hub.”
A slide titled ‘Introduction’ appears, showing a woman jogging outdoors.
Kate P continues: “Okay, let's get started. So This Girl Can has accomplished so much over the past ten years, and none of it would have been possible without your incredible support. Across the sector, we're seeing fantastic efforts to help women and girls get active. But the reality is we're not there yet. Our latest insight has found that only 1 in 10 women on lower incomes feel they completely belong in the world of physical activity, and 1 in 6 women have felt so unwelcome in an activity setting that they have never returned to that type of activity.”
A slide titled ‘What we want to achieve’ appears, showing a smiling woman using a weights machine in a fitness gym. Kate talks through the bullet points.
Kate P continues:
“These statistics highlight the need for continued action, because no woman should feel like she doesn't belong in sport and physical activity. And so, over the next three years, This Girl Can has four overarching objectives. The first is to decrease inactivity levels, and this is about encouraging those who aren't active yet to try some form of being active. The second is to increase activity levels, and this is about encouraging women who are a little bit active just to be a bit more active.
“The third is to positively change attitudes, and we'd like to increase the number of women from all backgrounds who feel that sport and physical activity is a place for them. And then finally, to build a collaborative movement. And this is about supporting people like yourselves who create opportunities and reasons for women and girls to get active, by providing inspiration, tools and assets.”
A slide titled ‘Our women’ appears, showing two women jogging together outdoors. Kate talks through the slide text.
“And to ensure that no woman is left behind, we have taken an intersectional approach to identifying the audiences we’ll be focusing on. Using statistical methods through our inequalities metric, we have established the factors of inequality that lead to some women achieving more minutes of activity per week than others. And so this next chapter of This Girl Can is unapologetically focussed on supporting women from underrepresented backgrounds to get active. Women who face the greatest barriers to physical activity, yet have the most to gain.
“And you'll hear much more about this as we delve into the insight and what our women have told us. So while the campaign is for all women, our focus will be to engage with all women on lower incomes and who additionally are from South Asian Muslim communities, black communities, age 55 years or over, and are pregnant and/or have a child under one.
“And taking a further intersectional approach the campaign will also need to meet the needs of our disabled women, as well as our women with a long-term health condition. And we know that every woman is unique and much more than a set of characteristics. So to reflect this, we'll be describing our audience as ‚’our women’, and you'll hear that throughout.
A slide titled ‘Timeline’ appears, with a graphic of a timeline underneath showing different stages of the campaign from Q1 2025 through to Q1 2026. Kate talks it through.
Kate P says: “So before we get into the insight, just a brief reminder of our timeline for the next year. First off is ‚’Raise It’. So to kickstart the campaign and amplify the voices of our women, we launched a PR activation at the end of February to highlight the inclusion gap and the barriers women face to being included in the world of physical activity.
“And we'll continue to amplify our women’s voices throughout the campaign. And we are now in the ‚’Shape It’ phase. And this is the opportunity to bring you, our partners, on the journey with us, arming you with the insight to help you identify what actions you can take to narrow the inclusion gap. And this leads to what we're calling ’Celebrate It’.
“So in the autumn, this is when we'll be launching our consumer-facing advertising campaign, looking to engage our women, recognising the challenges they face, and to help break down the barriers that's preventing them to take that first step back into physical activity. Now, before I hand you over to Nilen and Steph to take you through the topline findings of our research, we'll play one of the assets we'll be making available to you to encourage everyone in the industry to read the ’Belonging Starts with Inclusion’ insight report. Please roll film.”
A full-screen video begins playing.
The video begins with a high-tempo, upbeat music track that continues throughout, with the This Girl Can logo in the top right of the screen.
A female voiceover says the following words: "For 10 years, This Girl Can has celebrated women getting active in whatever ways work for them."
During this sentence, we see the words ‘For 10 years’ appear on a purple background, followed by a quick transition between shots of different women getting active: kicking a boxing bag, jumping on a trampoline, swimming, practising judo, roller-skating, boxing, playing rugby and using a seated leg press in a gym.
The voiceover continues: "Together, we've helped to break down barriers, challenge stereotypes and show there's no one way to be active."
During this sentence, we see the words ‘Helped to break down barriers’ drop in from the top of the screen on a purple background, followed by a split screen of the words ‘Challenge stereotypes’ and, to the right, shots of different women running, exercising with their babies, dancing and doing warm-up squat jumps with a group on a pitch in a circle.
The voiceover continues: "But despite this progress, there is still more work to be done."
The words ‘There is still more work to be done’ slide in on the purple background.
The voiceover says: "Women remain less active than men." These words appear individually on screen.
She continues: "And for some, the world of sport and physical activity still doesn't feel like a space where they belong."
During this sentence, we see a defeated-looking woman leaning on a wall, a woman arguing with a man in a living room and an exhausted woman collapsing onto a sofa.
The voiceover says: "Our research found that only one in 10 women from lower-income backgrounds feel they completely belong in physical activity."
The words ‘One in 10 women from lower-income backgrounds feel they completely belong in physical activity’ appear on screen.
A shot of two women walking with their children in prams appears alongside the following text, which is also spoken: "And one in six have felt so unwelcome that they've never returned to that activity."
The voiceover says: "But this isn't just about the sport and physical activity sector. It's bigger than that."
The words ‘This isn’t just about our sector’ slide in and flash on a green background.
The voiceover continues: "This feeling of exclusion is shaped by a mix of economic, social and emotional barriers."
During this sentence, we see a slow-motion shot of people walking down a busy high street.
The voiceover says: "Right now, 61% of women on lower incomes are thinking about getting active."
There’s a split screen with the text ‘61% of women on lower incomes’ on the left, and shots of women dancing on the right.
The words ‘thinking about getting active’ are then overlaid across the whole screen, with the women dancing in the background.
The voiceover says: "Lots of great work is already happening across the country, but we're not there yet."
During this sentence we see shots of the Black Girls Do Run club warming up and laughing, before the words ‘But we’re not there yet’ appear over the top of a woman preparing to lift a barbell.
The voiceover says: "This is our opportunity to change the narrative and support our women."
During this, the words ‘This is our opportunity’ scroll across the screen on a purple background, followed by ‘to change the narrative and support our women’ appearing individually.
There’s a shot of a large group of women and roller-skaters dancing, embracing and clapping animatedly, with the following overlaid words that are also spoken:
"Together, we can help more women feel like they belong in the world of sport and physical activity and inspire them to be more active."
The voiceover continues: "Our insight report shows how we can all bring back joy, make women feel seen, and create a world where every woman feels welcomed. Read it to see how you can help."
During this sentence, we see a shot of the front cover of the report, entitled ‘Belonging Starts with Inclusion’ followed by pages from it with the titles ‘Methodology’, ‘About our women’, ‘Barriers’, ‘Motivations’ and ‘Conclusion and shared ambition’.
The following words appear on the screen as they’re spoken: "Because belonging starts with inclusion."
The video ends with a slate featuring the This Girl Can logo and the URL www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/startwithinclusion, as the music track comes to an abrupt end.
A new title slide appears, showing two smiling women hiking in a park setting. The title ‘Understanding our audiences: Key findings from the research” is shown next to this.
Two new speakers appear in small windows next to the title slide. They are Nilen Bhatt and Steph Phillips.
Nilen says: “Great, thanks Kate, for setting this up and sharing the video. Hello everyone. My name is Nilen Bhatt, I'm the Head of Behavioural Insight at Sport England. And I've been working on This Girl Can insight over the last four years or so and have been overseeing our phase six research. And yeah, my absolute pleasure to be here and speaking to you all today. I'll pass on to Steph.”
Steph Phillips says: “Hi. I'm Steph Phillips and I'm the Strategy Director for the This Girl Can Collective, helping to transform these insights into what will become our communications campaign.”
Nilen continues: “Thanks very much, Steph.”
A new slide appears, with the title ‘We have done a lot of research to:’ followed by a numbered list.
Nilen talks through the text: “So, yeah, Steph and I are going to be talking through the findings from the research we've been conducting with our women over the last four months or so.”
The slide becomes full-screen, while Nilen continues to provide voiceover.
Nilen says: “So just a bit of context first, so with This Girl Can’s, kind of more specific focus on our new priority audiences, we knew we needed to conduct a significant amount of research to build our knowledge and understanding of our women, so that we could be insight-led in engaging them and kind of meet their needs, in a way that we can best be served by what they require.
“So the research was quite broad and overarching, but we did have three main objectives. And they were to understand the scale and breadth of the barriers that prevent our women from getting active, unearth what will motivate our women to become more active despite these barriers, and understand what type of support and solutions our women need to get started and sustain their activity levels.
“In terms of the methodology we took, there have been four different phases of the research. We had an initial qual and quant research done by 23Red, when bidding to become our creative agency. And that's where we got the idea around Belonging Starts with Inclusion. And then we ran an online community with 26 low-income women.
“So this is a qualitative methodology for those of you who aren't familiar with it, where participants can log on to an online platform for around 30 minutes a day, and they were asked to complete a series of tasks, answer some questions. There are opportunities to speak to one another. Share some photos and videos, etc..
“So it's a highly engaging method. We then did follow-up interviews with 12 participants to build on what we'd heard in the online community. And then lastly, we conducted a survey with our women to quantify what we'd heard in the qual research and identify any differences by different subgroups. The sample of the survey was 100 nationally represented low-income women.
“But then we also recruited an additional sample of 250 women from each of our four specific audiences. So overall, we’ve got quite a robust sample size, meaning we can have quite a lot of confidence in the results.”
A new slide appears, entitled ‘Executive Summary’.
Nilen talks through the text: “One thing to note is, we've got lots and lots of insights by different groups, from this research.
“But, just to keep today's session succinct, most of the insights spoken about will be discussed that are overall kind of low-income women level, and there are of course differences and nuances by our different groups. And you can read all about them in the insight report that we've mentioned will be available soon. Or you can get in touch with one of us after this webinar.
“So on this slide, we've got the top three findings from the many findings we’ve unearthed in this research. So firstly, we've learnt that many of our women feel quite ambivalent and indifferent towards their belonging within the world of physical activity. And that creates a state of flux, a stage where people are thinking about becoming more active but not quite taking that leap to do so.
“And actually only 1 in 10 of our women feel like they completely belong in the world of physical activity. Next, we've learnt that there are lots of different barriers that our women encounter that makes it difficult for them to become more active. These can be related to time, finances, their culture, etc. so a whole heap of different challenges.
“And yeah, these can all have an impact on their motivation to be active. And finally, we've learnt that simple solutions and practical guidance work. According to our women, it's not all about having to rip up the playbook completely and start again. But actually fairly basic things like offering gentle, low-impact activities and having more representation within imagery, and within different activity settings, can make our women feel more welcome.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Getting to know our women”. The title text is shown against a grid of images showing headshots of different women from a variety of demographics.
Nilen says: “But we'll go into more detail about each of these as we go through the deck. So in this first section, we're just going to talk a little bit about the background of our women and some of the things that are happening within their lives.”
A new slide comes on screen, with the title “Our women are under financial and time pressures, and are exhausted”. A subheading says “Due to the rising cost of living, and being time poor, our inactive women tend to see exercise as depleting – a suck on the precious energy they have left”.
On the right-hand-side of the screen are two quotes from different women supporting these points.
Nilen continues: “So here we've got the context, some context about the lives of our women. And unfortunately for many of our women, quite a lot of the time life can actually feel quite challenging. Probably unsurprisingly, they've been affected quite hard by the rise in the cost of living over the last few years. It's common for them to report that they're struggling to cover the cost of bills, the cost of groceries, and the cost of a lot of other things.
“They told us that quite a lot of the time they work long, unsociable hours. They have lots of household responsibilities. They have lots of childcare responsibilities that they lead on. And this can lead to a situation where they feel tired and low on energy quite a lot of the time. And actually many of them perceive exercise to be depleting rather than restorative.
“So they don't want to expend what little time they have, on something that they feel will actually make them feel more tired and, actually drain their energy. And many of them also reported that the only bit of spare time they get is towards the end of the day, and they don't want to go out and do exercise at 9 p.m. and that's not something we want to encourage either.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Our women are not feeling great”.
Nilen talks through the text on the slide: “This slide is also quite sad as well, really. I think the key takeaway is that our women are just generally not feeling particularly great. 41% of them said that they sleep poorly. The same percentage, so just 41%, said that they have good energy levels. Under half say that their physical health is good, and over half said that pain limits what they can do.
“And on top of that, we know our women are quite time-poor. Because of their jobs, their childcare and household responsibilities. So understandably, exercise often just doesn't feel that feasible for them. But actually exercise could potentially benefit these women more than plenty of other groups of people, because we know exercise has the potential to give you more energy.
“It can help you sleep better, improve your mood, even improve your mobility potentially. So yeah, it's quite the shame that those who could most benefit from exercise don't currently feel that included within it, or like exercise is something for them. So in terms of implications, I guess in terms of our communication, we need to factor this in and remember that our women are quite often tired and in pain and potentially centre messaging around gentle ways to get restarted.”
A new title slide appears, with the title text “The Belonging Problem”.
Nilen continues: “So in this section, just going to go through some of the data we've discussed in the executive summary, around feelings of belonging.”
The slide changes again. On the left side is the heading ‘Not many women feel like they completely belong in the world of exercise”. On the right side is a bar chart showing the different levels to which women rated their perceived level of belonging in the world of exercise.
Nilen talks through the slide: “So already spoken a bit about this earlier, but, when we asked our women to what extent they feel like they belong in the world of physical activity, a lot of them are actually in the middle with an average score of three, on a scale of 1 to 5. So our women generally feel neither included or excluded, when they think about belonging within the world of physical activity, they generally feel ambivalence and indifference.
“Now, if we're honest, I think, maybe we thought the percentage of women who say that they don't feel like they belong at all within the world of physical activity might actually be higher. But actually ambivalence is still a problem, because ambivalence is one of the main reasons where people think about becoming more active, but not enough to actually take the leap and change their behaviour and start a new activity and then sustain it.
“As you can see, towards the bottom of the slide, only 11% of our women feel like they completely belong in the world of physical activity. And yeah, we'd want this number to ideally be significantly higher. As then we’d think, if more people felt like they completely belonged within physical activity, more would take that leap and start and increase their activity levels.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Are there any places or situations regarding physical activity where our women feel like they don’t belong?” A bar chart is shown underneath listing different exercise settings and the percentage of women who felt they didn’t belong in each one.
Nilen talks through the slide: “So on this slide, we wanted to share some data on how our women feel about specific exercise settings. One thing worth saying is we know that there are so many organisations and people working hard in the sector to make it as inclusive as possible. And that's why we're blessed with having so many people on this call.
“And we're of course very appreciative of that. But I think what this data shows is that there's still more work to be done in all the traditional places that people associate with getting active. And as you can see on this graph, half of our women, so 51%, feel like they don't belong in gyms, and 2 in 5, so 42%, feel the same about sports clubs. And yeah, a slightly lower percentage, reporting the same about exercise classes. So I think this suggests that many of our women feel like they don't belong in common exercise settings. And that of course makes it harder for them to start and maintain habits and routines around exercise.
“One thing I would say is, and I think Steph will come onto this later in more depth, is that many of our women don't have that much recent experience of exercise settings. So for many of them, this sense of lack of belonging could well stem from kind of historical experiences and assumptions, rather than, recent activities, where inclusivity has been given a greater focus.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Bad experiences can have long lasting effects”. A bar chart is shown underneath.
Nilen briefly talks through the slide content: “We won’t spend too long on this slide, but the key takeaway is that bad experiences can be scarring and they can have a lasting legacy. 1 in 6 of our women have actually reported that they've had such a negative experience in physical activity that they've either lost confidence in trying new activities or they've never returned to that type of activity.
“So while 17% is by no means the majority, it's still a sizeable minority. And I guess what we can learn from this is that when our women take the leap and take part in exercise, we need to ensure that their experience is positive. Otherwise, we risk putting them off for an extended period of time.”
A new slide appears, with the title “There is a nuanced relationship between exclusion and inclusion” and some text copy underneath.
Nilen continues: “So on this slide, I think what is important to pull out is that there are actually quite a few nuances within the results. What surprised us was that Black women report the lowest levels of feeling like they don't belong, and women aged 55+ report the highest levels of feeling like they don't belong. Now, what makes this surprising is that women who are 55+ actually report the lowest levels of negative experiences, but they still have this belief around not feeling included, whereas our Black women reported the highest number of negative experiences.
“So actually what we see is probably the inverse. I think we probably need to do a bit more digging and to explore why this is the case, but it indicates that there's a complicated relationship between perceived and actual exclusion, and assumptions might play quite a big part in how inclusive exercise is perceived to be.”
A new title slide appears, with the heading “The Barriers”.
Nilen says: “So yeah, we’re going to move on to the barriers section now. And, yeah, what's worth saying is that women face many barriers when it comes to getting active. Some of the barriers affect all of our women. But then there are also some additional barriers which affect certain groups more or less.”
A new slide appears, with the heading “Our women face a complex set of barriers”. A diagram with some accompanying text summarises some of the key barriers.
Nilen talks through the slide: “So I think this diagram nicely sums up the types of barriers our women encounter. So firstly, we've got ‚’not accessible to me’. So, many women face challenges in accessing exercise opportunities due to cost, timing, the clothing requirements, location of activities and other practical considerations that make it difficult for them to participate. So yeah, these barriers tend to be all quite logistical or practical.
“Secondly, you have barriers around ‚’not my world’. Now, this is in relation to our women don't feel like they completely belong in exercise spaces, which I’ve already mentioned. They don't feel represented, they can feel unsafe and they always don't know what to do. And then we move on to, kind of, this third level of barriers, which is around exercise not being their focus.
“So for most of our women, their families and their communities come first, they wouldn't probably even put themselves as kind of second or third on their list of priorities. They are probably fifth or sixth. So that means that they feel like they don't have the time and energy, to actually kind of dedicate to physical activity, because when they get those moments of time, they would rather spend that on their families or they'd rather spend that doing something which actually kind of helps them unwind, like watching TV or browsing their phones quite understandably.
“And then lastly, we've got the deep-rooted emotional barriers. These are often shaped by women's previous experiences of physical activity and also sometimes what they've heard from others. So many have concerns that exercise, they'll find it overwhelming. They feel like they'll be judged in exercise settings, they'll feel embarrassed. They'll feel inadequate. They will feel frustrated.
“All quite negative feelings that impact self-esteem, motivation, confidence and all things that can have a lasting legacy. And I think this is a deep-rooted barrier which affects probably a large majority of women. So when you overlay these differences, sorry, these types of barriers, you can really see the kind of complexity of the challenges our women face and why it's so difficult for them to be more motivated to be active and kind of increase activity levels.”
A new slide appears with the title “Cost and motivation emerge as top barriers but don’t tell a complete picture”. A bar chart is shown underneath listing different barriers and a percentage rating for each one.
Nilen talks through the data: “So this slide ranks the, kind of top barriers identified by our women. Probably somewhat unsurprisingly, cost came out as the joint top barrier. And yeah, there's no getting away from kind of challenges around cost.
“But if all exercise was free, you would likely still have a proportion of inactive people in England, a high proportion of inactive people. So I guess to support this, walking is of course generally free. But obviously that's an activity that many, many people don't do regularly. So this indicates that barriers go well beyond finances. And yeah, there are kind of other cultural and structural barriers that run deeper.
“And you can see via the graph there are going to be lots of other common barriers that our women face. So, barriers around kind of lack of energy, which we’ve mentioned, confidence, bodies not moving like they used to, etc.. So yeah, quite a few different barriers. And there are differences by subgroups too. For example, pregnant women and new mums were more likely to identify lack of childcare options as a barrier.
“Asian Muslim women were more likely to identify challenges around kind of appropriate clothing to wear. And our Black women were more likely to raise challenges around kind of managing their hair when they're active.”
A new slide appears with the title ‘Life stages matter’ and some supporting text underneath.
Nilen talks through the slide: “And yeah, women also actually encountered distinct barriers to physical activity that evolved with their age, life circumstances and bodily changes. So, recognising these challenges is really key to kind of designing inclusive solutions that encourage women to be active at different stages of their lives. Barriers change as women go through life. So, for example, fear of judgement is a significant barrier for many women in their 20s and quite often the main barrier.
“But then in your 50s, main barriers tend to evolve to be more around kind of, challenges with their body and being in pain and kind of, not necessarily being able to perform the activities they were once able to do. And barriers vary by intersectionality, too. So if you’re Muslim and older, you likely have different barriers to those who are Black and older.
“And the same applies to pregnancy too. And yeah, these differences are all important considerations when designing inclusive provision and inviting our women into activities. So in terms of implication, yeah, I think we've learned that provision, messaging and advice needs to be tailored and nuanced to empower women to be active as they go through different life stages and their needs change.
“And actually also, I think there’s potentially some powerful messaging around reassuring our women that it's okay not to be able to do the activities they once could when they were in their 20s. So for example, being able to run a 10K, and so messaging around kind of, encouraging our women to embrace new and perhaps more gentle activities.”
A new title slide appears, with the heading “The Motivators”.
Nilen says: “I am handing over to Steph at this stage.”
Steph Phillips starts talking, while the slide remains on screen.
Steph says: “Thank you Nilen for laying out the complexity of the barriers. Luckily, we also investigated what would motivate our women despite the barriers so that we can understand the different levers we can pull to help get them active. Next slide please.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Inactive women say they want to exercise for weight loss but for many this isn’t enough to start or sustain activity”. A bar chart underneath shows the different motivators for women, and the percentage rating for each one.
Steph says: “It's probably no surprise to a lot of people that when you ask women what would motivate them to get active, their top response is ‚’help manage my weight’.
“Here we have it closely followed by ‚’improve my fitness’ and ‚’improve my physical health’. Many of our women have tried to exercise to lose weight, but often when they don't see any results, they give up. And these other reasons like improve my fitness or physical health, also feel slightly intangible because they're so future-focussed. And all of this compounds a very all or nothing mindset where our women assume that it takes a lot of time to reap the benefits of exercise, which is why despite listing weight loss as the top motivator, for many this isn't enough to start or sustain activity.”
A new slide appears with the heading “But active women the same audiences see activity differently: They see it as a means to lift their day” with some supporting text alongside it.
Steph continues: “But our active women amongst the same audience, they see activity very differently. They see it as a means to lift their day. So what we mean by that is, when we speak to our active women in the same groups, they don't do exercise to improve their appearance or their health. They literally do it to improve their day. This was a really big unlock for us, because it means that one of the big implications, especially in communications, is to help our women shift seeing exercise being associated with these long-term benefits that take a lot of effort, like to lose weight, and instead to get them to embrace the immediate feel-good benefits of movement on body and mind that can be felt the same day that you actually do it.”
A new slide appears, with the title ‘And once we expanded the potential benefits, better sleep was the number one motivator”. Another bar chart is shown underneath.
Steph explains the data: “What was interesting is once we expanded the full list of potential benefits, we start to see completely different benefits emerge to the top as the main reasons a woman would want to get more active. So you can see ‚’better sleep’ is the number one motivation. Not surprising, given Nilen said so few of our women are sleeping well. The second one is ‚’feeling more confident’, then we have ’managing weight’, which is unsurprising.
And then the third one is ’improving mental health’. So even just within these three things, better sleep, feeling more confident and improving mental health and having that shift in how you feel, there are much more potent motivators for us to play with in our communication.”
A new slide appears, with the heading ‘Action can lead to motivation”. Some body text is shown underneath, and on the right side of the slide is a flow diagram showing the cyclical nature of action and motivation.
Steph continues: “The other interesting thing that we observed in the research is that, of course, many women blame themselves for not being motivated enough to exercise, and they assume that when they will be motivated enough, they will get active. But actually what we observed is something much more interesting, which is that when we invited our women in our research to do just ten minutes of exercise of their choosing, so they could go for a walk, or we gave them a list of three different online videos they could do, many of them ended up doing far more than ten minutes.
“And then the next few days, many of them went on to investigate gym memberships or classes in their area. And what was interesting about this is it shows that action can actually lead to motivation, and not just the other way around, because once you take action, you get an immediate result that you feel in your body, a sense of well-being.
“And that then feeds the motivation to want to keep you more active. And when we did further investigation, it turns out that this has been demonstrated in multiple other studies that actually you just need to break this deadlock of inertia. And then women start to rebuild their confidence and their motivation with it.”
A new slide appears, with the heading ‘Walking is the unifier”. A bar chart underneath shows the preferred physical activities for different demographic groups.
Steph says: “Of course, as Nilen said, walking is always the first thing women say, when you say, ”what type of activity would you like to do?” You can see on the left that the two strongest responses are ‚’walking on my own’ and ‚’walking with others’. But then it's interesting if you look at the other activities because you start to see the differences between audiences in terms of activities that appeal to them.
“So depending on which communities and audiences you work with, some of these results might be useful. If you look at swimming, for example, though very popular with older women, it has far more barriers for Black and Asian Muslim women for different reasons, either for hair management or because people haven't learnt to swim, or because there aren't enough women-only sessions, with female lifeguards and so on.
“But surprisingly, if you talk about dance/activity classes in a pool, if you look at the far right, Black women love that. So it's not really a case of not being attracted to being in a swimming pool. It's just the act of swimming in a pool. Dance classes resonate with a lot of women, especially with culturally relevant music like soca or Afrobeat for our Black women.
“And then family activities are really motivating for Asian Muslim women and of course, those with young babies.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Ultimately, many of our women have similar needs and preferences”. A diagram is shown alongside to illustrate this point.
Steph explains: “But ultimately, many of our women have similar needs and preferences. Even despite all these differences between communities, the four things came up over and over. The first one is ‚’community’. All of our women want community, whether it's online and in real life, to feel accountable to them and supported by them. And to feel like there are other women like them in the same life stages, going through the same struggles.
“And it keeps them motivated to keep coming back. ‚’Guidance’ is really important. If you think of this audience, many of our women don't have a blueprint for what activities should be like, what should they expect? How do they deal with being sore? How did they adjust what they're doing for injuries or pain? And many of them said they need a lot of hands-on help to help get them restarted.
“It's not just a case of getting them motivated. They also need guidance. ‚’Suitability’ was a huge thing that came back under multiple names. This is really about meeting women where they are at now. They need gentle classes for re-starters, and a lot of them don't want to risk going to an all-level class and then being the weakest one there.
“They really want to know that they're going to be surrounded by women of their body type, their ability. They need help setting achievable goals that are right for them now in their new bodies, whether that's after having a baby or maybe after going through menopause. And ideally, classes that fit within their timetables, which can be pretty challenging for a lot of our women.
“The biggest opportunity that came up was really the morning, after the school run, and weekend mornings also. And lastly, ’enjoyment’. A lot of our research pointed to the fact that women think that ‚’exercise’ is very loaded as a word and feels very serious, and this absence of joy or playfulness, we know is a big deterrent for women, and that enjoyment is highly correlated to women partaking in activity. So this encompasses the music, how welcoming a class is, how you’re spoken to throughout that class. But that joy was a really big component for our women.”
A new title slide comes up with the heading “The Opportunity for the Sector”.
Steph continues: “So the opportunity for the sector is something that we investigated to understand what exactly our women wanted and needed.”
A new slide appears, with the title “Our women want practical solutions from the sector” and some supporting text copy and bullet points.
Steph talks through the slide: “Across the board, our women want practical solutions from the sector. We gave them a whole battery of things that they could select. And 84% of our women want practical support things like childcare, transport, flexible timing, free class options, nearby locations and women-only facilities, and 82% of our women asked for help getting started. So some of the ideas that we had put in are things where 15-minute taster sessions so that women didn't feel they had to commit to a 45-minute or hour session, re-starter only classes, and you've heard us use this word, ’re-starter’ a few times.
“Many of our women are not beginners. Once upon a time they were active, but maybe they haven't been active for a few months, maybe even for a few years. So this idea of just restarting and getting back into movement is important. And then just gentle exercise options. Some of our women asked for a ‚’no burpee promise’ and commitment.”
A new slide appears with the title “Most don’t know it’s already there”. Some supporting text is underneath, with a collage of exercise ads shown on the right side of the slide.
Steph continues: “In a lot of cases, as Nilen said, our women are often working off assumptions, historical knowledge or hearsay. Many of them haven't actually had direct contact with the sector for a while, and when we set them a discovery task for them to go and see what already existed in their neighbourhood, many of them actually found free or low-cost offerings that met lots of their requirements, even including childcare.
“The implication for us really, is that our women are not going out to seek what is on offer to them locally. So we need to bring the knowledge of what exists into their world and try and intercept them so that they can see that it even exists in the first place.”
A new title slide appears with the heading “How we can help our women”.
Steph says: “So how can we help our women? And this is really just a summary of a lot of the insights that we've received until this point.”
A new slide appears with the title “Top 4 things to help our women get moving” and some bullet points listed underneath.
Steph talks through the slide content: “We summarised it as four things. The first is help our women see exercise as restorative rather than depleting. The emphasis should be on the immediate benefits, including better sleep and mood. Secondly, we need to make it easier for them to restart by promoting and providing activities that are accessible, fun, bite-sized and offering a supportive community.
“It's more inviting to them to focus on restarters rather than what we typically do, which is to offer all levels, which can still be very intimidating. Help with their mindset - our women need regular nudges and encouragement, as well as help transforming their all or nothing mindsets around exercise. Anything we can do to inspire women to do even a little, that even a little makes a big difference to start breaking that inertia.
“And lastly, being as representative as possible in all of our communications. There are many tropes in the world of exercise of showing skinny women, women who are just, you know, wearing their bras and no tops. And it's very important to all of our women that this goes beyond racial representation. This is about body types, skin tones, but also dress code, as well as reflecting life stages, women with their children, women who are older.
“All of this will signal to women that they do belong in these spaces. And with that, I will hand you over to Scott.”
A new title slide appears showing a women in a park meditating, with the title text “Resources for you” shown alongside the image.
Scott Radcliffe appears in a small window next to the slide, which fills most of the screen.
Scott says: “Thank you Nilen and Steph. So as you all can see from the extensive research that we've just gone through, there is a lot of new information to share with you. And so we have produced a range of assets, which aim to present this information in a digestible way and allow you to share it with your networks. And if you're an activity provider, consider how you might adapt your current offerings or even create new ones, to meet our women's needs.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Resources available” and a list of bullet points underneath.
Scott talks through the slide content: “So just an overview of the resources that will be available. To share this, we have created the following resources for you. The Insight report itself, which is relevant to anyone within the physical activity sector and provides a detailed look at the motivations and barriers our women face, which we've just gone through.
“A short film which you saw earlier, which highlights some of the key takeaways from the research and acts as a bit of a teaser to the main document. The film can also be used by some of our larger organisations for signposting or just to set the scene when engaging with your partners. And for those same larger organisations like Active Partnerships, national governing bodies or other system partners, we've also produced a comms toolkit with several tools to help you share the insight more widely with your networks.
“All of these resources will be available to download from the This Girl Can Campaign Hub. The URL is www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/startwithinclusion. And I think Jo's helpfully shared that in the chat. The form and the toolkit are available now. And the Insight report will be available to download from Monday, this coming Monday the 31st of March. So do take a look at that.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Insight report”, some supporting bullet points, and some screenshots from the report.
Scott continues: “In terms of a bit more detail on the Insight report and the documents themselves. So the insight report is a fully accessible PDF document. And this has been designed to detail all the research that Nilen and Steph have just taken us through today, and presented in a digestible way.
“So it covers everything that I talked about, including the methodology that was used to develop the insights, the barriers to getting active that our women are sharing with us. Then what would motivate our woman to get active, and also what we can all do to help them get active. And we've highlighted some of the key things to think about around representation, practical support, and suggested activities.”
A new slide appears with the heading “Campaign toolkit”, some supporting bullet points, and some images from the toolkit.
Scott talks through the slide: “Then on the campaign toolkit. So this is aimed at those larger organisations I mentioned and has been designed to help you share the Insight report with the clubs, groups or other organisations you may work with. Like the Insight report, it's a fully accessible PDF document that will provide you with some more context to this new phase of the campaign and will include the key messaging and highlight the main takeaways from the Insight report.
“It will include the following assets or links to them on the campaign hub. So an editable presentation for you to use at events to help present those insights, and possibly look at it from a local lens. Suggested copy that you can use to share the insights from the report on your website, emails and newsletters. And then we've also produced three social media assets with key takeaways from the insight for use on your channels.”
A second “Campaign toolkit” slide appears, showing more images from the toolkit. This is followed soon after by another group of images from the toolkit.
Scott continues: “And over the next two slides, is just a bit of a snapshot of what's included in the toolkit, with some of the key messages highlighted here. The long and short copy that's been provided to help you share the information through your websites, newsletters, if relevant to you. And then on the next one, some of the examples of the social assets we've developed, which you'll be able to edit and include your logo on when you share through your own channels.”
A new slide appears with the title “How you can help” and some supporting bullet points underneath. An image of a smiling woman is shown alongside this.
Scott says: “So how can you help? Well, we'd encourage you all to read the Insight report, in full. And for those of you engaging with delivery partners like Active Partnerships, NGBs as I've mentioned, we'd encourage you to share the Insight report with the organisations you work with, and use the toolkit provided to help highlight some of the key takeaways and the opportunities that exist.
“If you're an activity provider, consider how this might influence your current offerings. And if relevant, this could mean making small changes to your activities or simply how you communicate and tell people about them. And as mentioned, the film and toolkit are ready to view and download from the campaign hub and the Insight report will be available on Monday, the 31st of March.
“So please visit the campaign hub, or click on the link that we have shared with you. And then just looking ahead.”
A new slide appears with the title “Looking ahead” and some bullet points underneath. An image of two women hiking is shown on the left.
Scott continues: “So, before our ‚’Celebrate It’ advertising campaign launches in September, we will release another set of comms assets, which again will allow you to support the campaign, and localise and tailor the messaging to the women in your own areas, and communities.
“So thank you very much. And I'm now going to hand over to Kate Dale.”
The video window of Scott changes to a video window of Kate Dale, Director of Marketing for Sport England.
A new slide appears, with the heading “A conversation with Active Wellbeing Society and Saathi House”. Two thumbnail images appear of Ammaarah Faisal, This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead in Birmingham; and Tiffany Joseph, Centre Manager of Saathi House and Owner of MIU Wellness Hub.
Kate Dale says: “Thank you very much, Scott. I've been involved with This Girl Can since the very beginning. Since before the beginning. And one of the unexpected joys of the campaign has been meeting with and talking to some of the incredible people out there that are already doing incredible things, to be honest, and finding out what's going on on the ground. And it's just how we can connect all that together and make even more of it.
“So I am delighted today, to be joined by two of them, Ammaarah Faisal, who is Birmingham This Girl Can Community Engagement Lead, at the Active Wellbeing Society and has worked with organisations throughout Birmingham, to really help them bring This Girl Can to life, and really tackle social and health inequalities. And Tiffany Joseph, who is Centre Manager at Saathi House, and is also the proud owner of the MIU Wellness Hub. Tiffany's particularly passionate about empowering young girls and creating opportunities for them to be active in ways that work for them, and has a strong and proud sporting background herself.
“So, yeah, lovely to meet you. And thank you for joining us.”
The slide disappears, and is replaced by a full-screen view of Kate Dale, Ammaarah and Tiffany in conversation.
Kate D says: “Just to try and build on what we've learned and think about, I guess, how we can apply this insight and practice, because I think, it can feel overwhelming when you see all of it. Tiffany, let's start with you. Can you just tell us a bit about your role at Saathi House and the women and girls you're working with to get active?”
Tiffany replies: “Yeah, sure. So I'm Centre Manager at Saathi House and we have been working in the community for around 50 years. We’re a women's organisation based in Aston, but the majority of our service users are South Asian females. So we try to offer sessions around health and wellbeing, personal development, creative arts, youth work and support services.”
Kate D responds: “And Tiffany, when you listen to the Insight that we’re sharing, does that resonate with you in terms of the women who you work with?”
Tiffany answers: “Yeah, definitely. I was kind of nodding along to a lot of things that were being said in the slide and can completely relate to the things that are being mentioned, especially the barriers and the motivations as well.”
Kate D asks: “And so what have you done, I guess with, with your experience of working with them to overcome some of the barriers, and identify and work with the motivations so that they feel that what you're providing is welcome and inclusive?”
Tiffany says: “I think the thing we try to do most is kind of create that community where all women feel welcome and included. So a key focus of that is representation, especially within the South Asian community. So having a diverse range of coaches and facilitators that kind of represent the communities that we work with is really, really important because we ultimately want to create that space where people do feel welcome and they do feel included in the sessions as well.”
Kate D says: “Fantastic, and when we were talking the other day as well, you talked about the importance of the trusted voice and consistency as well. So taking time to build this up and finding the right people or organisations to talk to them, how important is that?”
Tiffany answers: “It is really important. Trust is the most important thing. I think having sessions that run consistently with people that they trust is really, really important. And I think consistency also, I think if people feel like something’s going to run for 6 or 8 weeks, they're less likely to engage in the sessions if they're going to miss 2 or 3 of them.
“But if they know it's going to be a long-term or a session that's going to be running there throughout then they're more likely to dip in and out. And I think once we've kind of got them in and they’ve enjoyed the session and they feel welcome and they feel included, they're more likely to come back again for more sessions.”
Kate D says: “Again, something I, I love that you said is if you get somebody along, getting them into the first session is often the hardest bit. If they have a great experience when they're there, you kind of got them.”
Tiffany replies: “Definitely. I think if you can make someone feel like they're part of something and they have enjoyed, they've enjoyed their session and you know, they're more likely to come back. I think even from the slideshow, it showed that it’s that hesitation, it’s that ‚’am I going to fit in?’ You know, ‚’have I got the right skill set?’
“You know, ’is it gonna be too difficult for me?’ So once we can kind of cater for women in different skills, then, you know, they're more likely to come back for that second and third session. And they’ll also tell their friends to come as well.”
Kate D says: “Yeah. Fantastic. Lovely. Thank you. Ammaarah, coming on to you, I believe your connections to Saathi House go back a long way actually, you were telling me?”
Ammaarah says: “Yeah. So my grandma was part of the founding team of Saathi House back in the 70s. So my personal connections to Saathi House go back a long way. I've grown up with it in my kind of personal life. And then when I joined the workforce in Birmingham, I was a bit starstruck, actually to see how important it is in the professional world as well, because it's always really important to me and I think seeing some of my grandma’s work still kind of having impacts 50 years down the line is, yeah, it's incredible.”
Kate D says: “Oh, that's given me the feels, but I love, I love that and I think that really brings to life the importance of, it goes back to what was saying about trusted voices in community and understanding, where the organisations that are really fitting in, or the places or the spaces that fit in with our women's lives. And working through them rather than saying, ”come over to here to where we are” into a completely alien or somewhat alien environment. And then being surprised when that doesn't quite, quite land, that is lovely I'm sure your grandmother is very proud of you. Or would be very proud of you. So tell us a bit more about the work that you've been doing across Birmingham, I guess, and how you’ve been helping them bring This Girl Can to life, or just meet the needs of their women.”
Ammaarah answers: “Yeah. So I think it's like you say, working kind of with the existing community groups has kind of been the forefront of my mind when I joined the campaign. A lot of community groups are already out there in Birmingham. Birmingham’s a really, really broad place with a lot of different, diverse communities, and a lot of those communities have created groups born out of need.
“They already know kind of what they want, what they need, what their barriers might be. They just may struggle in terms of resources or the infrastructure to kind of keep things going and sustainable. And I think one thing that's been really important to me when I've worked with women and girls in Birmingham is kind of going where that need is, and having conversations with the communities to find out what they might want from the campaign over the next couple of years, what might be helpful.
“So, for example, focusing on kind of a more holistic approach, I guess, to sport and activity and as kind of was mentioned in the slideshow, sometimes exercise is a bit of a buzzword. People do tend to kind of recoil a bit from it if they haven't had good experiences with it. And I think the approach for This Girl Can in Birmingham is much more kind of wraparound.
“So one of the projects, for example, that I'm doing with Saathi House is more of a menstrual health period poverty project. So looking at kind of how to untangle the myths around periods and kind of tackle the stigma and the taboo that's around it with that kind of cultural lens, whilst also kind of providing taster sessions for activities and giving the girls a variety of options, I guess, of things that they could love and could really enjoy and then might want to carry on outside of that.”
Kate D responds: “That's fantastic. I think one thing that really strikes me, this is a question to both of you is, again, when you’re sort of presented with all the insight and see how much there is, it can feel overwhelming and it can feel like it's going to be complicated and expensive. And, you know, ‚’where do I start?’ But I think from what both of you are saying, there's actually some really simple steps that can be taken, that thing of just starting by, and it's what we always say with This Girl Can, is you start by listening, truly listening to women about what they need and what they want.
“And I think, getting down into those different groups of women and recognising that, even if they have demographic characteristics in common, women's experience, a particular group of women’s experience in Birmingham, might be different to, Leeds or Manchester or Cumbria where I'm from, or wherever, and so really understanding hyperlocally what's needed, has that's been what's worked for you Tiffany?
“That's a leading question, isn't it?” [laughter]
Tiffany answers: “Definitely, I think it's really important to always get feedback from whoever you're working with, because sometimes we think we know what the right thing is and actually we don't. So having those conversations, really understanding the barriers, and their needs and their preferences as well, will go a long way to kind of, getting the sessions or getting activity, or people moving more as well
“And I think, you know, the people on the ground are your superpower. So use them, go to them, ask the questions you need to ask ‚’cos they're going to give you all the answers that you need.”
Kate D says: “Fantastic. And I think one of the, I talk about this a lot but when I think that, the powers that women have and one of the things I think is that really in our favour is that we have the power to talk and share our vulnerabilities, and we've been brought up to do that much more. So I think actually asking those questions is not, it's not that difficult, is it?
“We will talk. And if you’re me you will never stop talking. But Ammaarah, how do you manage though, I think one of the challenges, especially for organisations such as yours, where you're working with a number of different groups, which will all have different needs, maybe sometimes competing needs as well, is how do you provide support across all of those, and how do you manage to do all of that? There's a lot.”
Ammaarah says: “It is a lot. Yeah. I think crucially, like you say, women are not a monolith. No community is monolithic. We're all made up of many different characteristics and many different life experiences. But I think I, I think I'm trying to aim for kind of where's the most impact. So going where the need is. And the only way to do that is by having conversations.
“Like Tiffany said, go to the communities, talk to them, be with them. You know, for example, it's Ramadan this month. So many organisations across Birmingham are doing Open Iftars where you can just go and chat and just be with them. And I think out of those conversations, you kind of organically learn what the needs are, and also what might work to help with those needs and what might help to tackle those barriers.
“But I think what's really important is that we don't try and kind of from a, from a partner's point of view, don't try and roll out more kind of generic programmes, I think is really important because like you say, there are a lot of needs, even within one community like mine, the South Asian Muslim Bangladeshi community, it's small but powerful, but within that we still have so many different needs.
“And I think it's really, really important that we don't just try and tackle all of it, but maybe go a little bit deeper and have more impact amongst a few people. And kind of that ripple effect will grow because they will, like Tiffany said, talk to their friends, talk to their family, their mums, their sisters. And I think having that knock-on effect is really important.”
Kate D says: “That ripple effect is so powerful, isn’t it. And I think the, the effect on one person as well of getting active and I mean, you must see this with your thing about empowering women and girls especially Tiff, the confidence and once they've got the confidence to getting active that unlocks so many things in, in someone's life.”
Tiffany says: “Yeah. Yeah. I think as well that I think when we’re catering sessions, we need to really think about who we’re catering towards, and focus on that group. Because if we stay more neutral, we're going to actually exclude people. So we need to make sure we're focusing on the group, so then we can work on building their confidence, like you said.
“And then the cohesive session will follow on from that afterwards. But sometimes we just need to make people feel comfortable and included, and then everything else follows afterwards.”
Kate D says: “Fantastic. Thank you. And, I think, I’d like to explore the role of This Girl Can, particularly because you would be doing this anyway, this is the work that you're doing on the ground and it's amazing. But how have you seen, and this is absolutely a leading question I know, but feel free to say what you want, the role of This Girl Can and being able to use the logo, the branding to connect to something that maybe has a national profile, has a little bit of I guess brand fame, does that have a role to play? Does that make a difference?”
Ammaarah replies: “Yeah, definitely. I think having that kind of branding. So I’m a community engagement role. But I'm still part of This Girl Can, I'm not part of the national marketing, but having that is definitely the hook. It kind of opens doors. It does get the conversation going. Everyone I've spoken to knows who This Girl Can is.
“They know this campaign and they trust it, which I think is really important. I think because it's fairly obviously a campaign designed by women for women, and inclusive of all women. However you are, however you identify, whatever your background is, I think it does open the door to have those conversations that may otherwise be shut down because they're about sport and exercise.
“And I think because it is very obviously representative, that definitely does pave the way to kind of open those doors and have those maybe more difficult conversations, for sure. And I think because there's that trust we’re a lot further down the line than if I was working at an organisation that didn't have that.”
Kate D says: “Great thank you. And, Tiffany, do you find that it's helpful with your work?”
Tiffany answers: “Yeah, it gives that, like Ammaarah said, it gives that kind of credibility and trust to a campaign that people know. And you feel part of as well. So it definitely helps with the work we do as well.”
Kate D says: “Obviously quite relieved that you said that. That's great. And that is absolutely what we want the campaign to do. I think over the last ten years, we've now built a platform and a voice, and we can have a point of view, but that's the point of view on behalf of all the women we're trying to reach.
“So it would be numerous views. And so, if you haven't signed up to support on the This Girl Can website, you can do so and then you can access all of these resources. The frustration of my job is I never have enough time to talk to all of you. We're going to have to wrap up shortly.
“But just one quick question to both of you. Anyone who may be coming to this for the first time, or repeated times, it doesn't matter. But what is, in terms of, it's talking to the audiences we're talking to, our women, as we’ve said throughout this presentation, if you had to give them one piece of advice, what would it be?
“Tiffany, we’ll start with you.”
Tiffany says: “Yeah, definitely go out and speak to women and find out what their needs are, what their barriers are. And, you know, and again, like what their motivators are, what can we do to bring people in. Just improving physical activity 10 to 15 minutes a day. Doesn't have to be an hour. And it will, it can change their life.
“I've seen it myself. We've all seen it ourselves as well. So yeah, go out and speak to people.
Kate D says: “Lovely. Thank you. Tiffany. Ammaarah, has she stolen your answer?
Ammaarah answers: “Yeah a little bit. Making my job a bit harder. Yeah. Exactly. Build on exactly what Tiffany said. But also I guess for maybe partners and kind of NGBs: be sustainable as well. Don't kind of go in and, and promise things and then not be able to follow through. Like I said, go where the need is and then put something in place that things can last.
“So if you're going in and kind of dropping in a series of sessions at six weeks, could you do it whilst training someone in that community so that they can then deliver that afterwards in case funding runs out or venues change? And I think create those pathways so that communities can kind of continue to run and be active themselves outside of NGB work.”
Kate D says: “Wonderful. Thank you both so much for taking part this morning and for the fantastic work that you're doing. I think my take outs from this are: be consistent and build trust. Listen, be consistent, build trust and sign up as a This Girl Can supporter. Thank you all for everything that you're doing.
“And I am now going to hand back to Kate Peers.”
Kate Peers reappears in a small video window, alongside a slide that takes up most of the screen. The slide features a girl playing rugby and the heading “Three things you can do now” with some bullet points underneath.
Kate P talks through the slide: “Thank you so much, Kate. And a huge thank you to Ammaarah and Tiffany. That was such an insightful conversation. I really, really enjoyed that. And so many key learnings. So thank you. Before we conclude, just a massive thank you to you all. There are three key actions that we're asking in the short term. So the first is to please complete our webinar survey.
“And that link should be going into the chat, any time now. So thank you, Jo. The second is when it's available, we encourage you to read the Insight report and think about what this means for you and your own work. And then third, please do use the communications toolkit to share the insight with your partners, have conversations and apply the learning how you think is best for your own work in your own communities.
“We'll be following up, for anyone who's registered this webinar with the links to, to all of the resources that Scott took you through.”
A ‘Thank you’ slide appears, showing a woman concentrating and looking into the distance. She is wearing a shirt with the word ‘finisher’ on it.
Kate P says: “So it just leaves me to say thank you so much to everyone for joining. It's together that we can create even more spaces and opportunities for our women to move in ways that are right for them and ultimately to create a world of activity where every woman feels that they belong.
“So thank you.”
The “Thank you” slide becomes full screen, and the video concludes.
On 28 November 2024, we hosted a webinar to share our vision for 2025 and beyond, diving into how This Girl Can will tackle inequalities to make sure no woman is left behind through our next campaign phase.
We also heard from awesome organisations paving the way for women to get active on their terms and looked ahead to key moments you could be part of.
The webinar begins with a video of three women doing squats while pushing prams on a park path. The title of the webinar, This Girl Can 2025 and Beyond, appears over the top of the video.
The video transitions to a still of three women jogging on a forest path, with ‘This Girl Can 2025 and Beyond’ also appearing on screen.
As this appears, the webinar’s host, Kate Dale from Sport England, begins talking – her live video is minimised to the side of the still image.
Kate D says: “Welcome to This Girl Can 2025 and Beyond webinar.
“A couple of bits of housekeeping before we start. We are recording this session, so that we can share and so that you can share the session and the deck through the recording with any colleagues or come back to it and also possibly for use on social media.
“So just so you're aware, and please do feel free to post any comments, questions, feedback, anything you want to share with us in the in the Q&A section. We are not planning to get to these. We’ve just got a really packed agenda today and lots of brilliant women to hear from.
“So I don’t think I'm going to be able to get to the questions and answers today, but we are going to come back on them and do sort of a follow-up communication with you all. Probably an email where we answer those questions and reflect on what you've been saying to us, so please don't be shy. Please tell us what you think. If you don't want your name involved in that, then you can use the anonymous function as well. So you have the option.
“To begin. This is really exciting. I've done a few of these before. Some of you may have heard from me before, I’m Kate Dale, I've been involved with This Girl Can from the very beginning. We've got some really exciting challenges to share with you today as we look at what the campaign needs to do over the next few years.”
As Kate is saying these words, the screen transitions to a still of two women in activewear pushing prams, with accompanying text that reads: ‘The aim for today’s session – to share our plans for the exciting next chapter of This Girl Can, showcase the opportunities it will offer and demonstrate how you can take part.’
Kate D continues: “And that's our plan for today's session. What this isn't is a big creative reveal. We are not at that stage yet. But we want to showcase opportunities and really demonstrate and really start talking to you about who you can get involved and you can help be part of what we do with the campaign next year. What we're going to cover – next slide, please.”
A photo of two women stretching while holding onto a barre in a studio appears, alongside text that reads: ‘What we will be taking you through – Introduction; Looking ahead; Strategy; Case studies; What’s next; Closing remarks.’
Kate D continues: “So what we'll be taking you through is a bit of an introduction. We’re going to look ahead, look at where This Girl Can needs to focus over the next few years and what that means for our strategy. Crucially, we're going to do what we always try to do with This Girl Can and listen to the women we're trying to reach, target, connect with, motivate. It's not about us. It's about our women. So those case studies are really important. Then into what next steps and how you can get involved. And then you'll come back to me for closing remarks.”
A slide titled ‘Introductions’ appears on screen, featuring thumbnail photos of the eight contributors to the webinar: Sport England’s Kate Dale, Director of Marketing, and Kate Peers, Strategic Lead for Campaigns; Sharon Jiggins, Managing Partner at TGC Collective; Amy Crees, Head of Campaign Development and Partnerships at Sport England; Rakhee Shah, Community Director at TGC Collective; Samin Mughal, founder of Loughborough Female Fitness; Yashmin Harun, Founder and Chair of the Muslimah Sports Association; and Gina McCabe, Outdoor Citizens Lead at YHA.
Kate D continues: “We have an illustrious panel today, so me you're already hearing from, it's not gonna be much from me today, you’ll be glad to know. Then Kate Peers, our Strategic Lead for Campaigns. And then Sharon, who is leading our TGC Collective, will talk through the strategy and Amy will talk you through timelines and next steps. And then we have an amazing panel ahead of that by Rakhee who will be talking through what this means in practice and listening to some of the insights from the women we’re trying to reach, through Samin, Yashmin and Gina. Next slide please.”
A slide titled ‘The start of an exciting new chapter for This Girl Can’ appears on screen, alongside a photo of a woman playing badminton.
Kate D continues: “And, yeah, this is the start of a really new and exciting chapter for This Girl Can. We're really proud of what we've achieved over the last ten years, ten years in January. It's been amazing. And if you've been any part of that, thank you so much for everything you've done. We could never have done what we've done, 3.1 million women getting active, as a result without you. And if you bought a Lottery ticket over the last ten years, thank you. This Girl Can is entirely National Lottery funded. This Girl Can because National Lottery players did. And that's really important.
“So thank you for everything you've done in helping us, helping all of us help women get this far, but we are only just beginning. There is so much more that we need to do if we’re to be true to our mission of no woman left behind. Next slide please.”
A slide appears on screen featuring a photo of several smiling women in a studio, with the overlaid title ‘Let’s hear it from our women’.
Kate D continues: “And yeah, that's enough from me. So as I said, let's start with hearing it from our women.”
A video begins with a woman who says: “I love physical activity.” A slide with the text ‘Our women tell us there are many benefits to being active…’ then briefly appears, before we see the woman again.
She continues: “I try to be active. I try to stay active. I actually cycle to work every day.”
The video cuts to another woman, who says: “Being physically active is very important for me because it’s a form of self-care.”
A third woman says: “It’s lovely just to meet up with a group of people who want to chat, but also want to exercise.”
A fourth woman says: “Yeah, I do use the gym and I feel like it keeps me at the same time it keeps you, like, healthy and then at the same time it refreshes your mind.”
A slide titled ‘But we know there are many barriers…’ appears briefly on screen.
The woman who spoke first returns on screen and says: “I have so much to do and so little time.
“And at the end of the day I feel like I haven’t done so much and have run out of time. If I have more time in a day, give me like 48 hours in a day, I would get active.”
A fifth woman says: “Classes for pregnant people are extremely expensive, so I think going to a general workout class, you can’t do a lot of the things that people can do when they’re not pregnant.
“So you obviously want to pay for classes that are designed for pregnant people and they are expensive and can be quite hard to access.”
A sixth woman says: “I think having a family now and taking care of family first and it is not how it used to be as well. It’s too much financial strain.”
A seventh woman says: “It’s really hard to be physically active when you’ve got a young family and young children and working on top of that. Having an employer who understands how important physical activity is and allowing you to be flexible and incorporate it in your day.”
An eighth woman says: “Quite often gyms aren’t set up for disabled people. I mean, look at wheelchair users. The disabled way of navigating a gym is entirely different from someone who is non-disabled and actually getting into the gym, let alone moving around the gym is something that is, you have to think about and if there are barriers to entry and to access, then why would a disabled person use that space?”
A ninth woman says: “Being a girl, especially a hijabi girl, sometimes you feel like you’re not included because there’s not enough space provided. Like, for example, in gyms, some gyms don’t offer like a women-only space where you feel that you’re comfortable to wear your attire and take your hijab off when you do an exercise. Because, like, a lot of the gym-wear that’s in place, it doesn’t really fit because they’re quite tight-fitted and stuff so it doesn’t really fit that, like when you’re wearing your hijab and stuff.”
The sixth woman says: “You have to have the right equipment. If you’re not trying out, if not financially, you give up before you can start. And I think especially coming from the African Caribbean, it has to be tailor-made for our enjoyment. Know what I mean? We like dancing, we like music. We like that kind of exercise and not just sitting down and doing press-ups and things, that’s not us. Music is what gives us our enjoyment.”
The video ends and is replaced by a slide titled ‘Vision’, featuring a photo of a girl running with a rugby ball.
A minimised live video of Kate Peers from Sport England appears to the side.
Kate P says: “Hi, I'm Kate Peers, I'm the Strategic Lead for This Girl Can.
“So some of that is hard to hear, but perhaps not surprising because we know there are still women who feel being active isn't for them or that they don't belong. And This Girl Can’s vision is to create a society where all women feel included in the world of physical activity, regardless of background, age, shape, size, or ability.”
A slide titled ‘Mission’ appears on screen, featuring two older women with walking poles.
Kate P continues: “And our mission, on the next slide, as listed here, is to narrow the gender gap in physical activity by inspiring, motivating and supporting women from all walks of life to become more active in ways that work for them.”
A collage of women taking part in physical activity appears on screen, with an overlaid title of ‘So who are we focussing on?’
Kate P continues: “So in order for us to achieve this vision and mission, we knew it was crucial for us, as always, to be led by the insight and the voices of our women and to understand the activity levels amongst different audience groups. So we have analysed the data to identify where we can make the greatest difference.”
A slide titled ‘Our women’ appears on screen, featuring two women running side by side.
Kate P continues: “And that is why this next chapter of This Girl Can is unapologetically focused on supporting women from underrepresented backgrounds, to get active. Women who face the greatest barriers to physical activity yet have the most to gain from being active.
“Now, they can be excluded from physical activity because they experience systemic, social, structural, cultural, and financial inequalities that they can't simply motivate themselves over. And this focus aligns with Sport England’s strategic priority to tackle inequalities and give everyone a chance to lead active lives.
“So our focus for the campaign will be to engage with women on lower incomes who additionally are from Asian Muslim communities, who additionally are from Black communities, who additionally are aged 55 years and over, and who additionally are pregnant and/or have a child under one. And taking an intersectional approach, the campaign will also need to meet the needs of our disabled women, as well as our women with a long-term health condition.
“And it's also important to mention here that our women are more than just statistics or characteristics. They are individuals with their own lived experiences of moving and barriers that they faced. So rather than referring to the women we want to engage with by social demographic labels, we have been calling the audience ‘our women’.”
A slide titled ‘What we want to achieve’ appears, featuring a photo of a woman using a seated weight machine in a gym.
Kate P continues: “And then on the next slide, you'll see over the next four years, This Girl Can has four overarching objectives. The first, and probably will come as no surprise - the first is to decrease inactivity levels, and this is encouraging those who aren't active yet to try some form of being active. The second is to increase activity levels, and this is about encouraging women who are a little bit active to become a bit more active.
“The third is to positively change attitudes, and this is about increasing the number of women from all backgrounds who feel that sport and physical activity is a place for them. And then fourth is to build a collaborative movement. And this is about supporting people like yourselves who create opportunities and reasons for women and girls to get active by providing inspiration, tools and assets.”
A slide titled ‘A significant step-change is needed’ appears on screen and Kate talks through the text.
Kate P continues: “So these ambitious targets require a significant step-change in how we next evolve This Girl Can. And we want the campaign to deliver behaviour change by celebrating all our women being seen and heard by society, and by working collaboratively with you, the organisations providing opportunities for women to get active, to ensure that we are collectively providing the conditions which women need to feel that they belong in physical activity.”
A slide titled ‘How we’re doing things differently’ appears, featuring images of women being physically active, as well as the logos of 23red, House of Oddities and MMC, under the banner of TGC Collective. Kate talks it through.
Kate P continues: “So we know it's a challenging brief, and to make it a success, we need to work in a really collaborative way to make sure we're developing representative work and learning from the many different organisations who are already so embedded in reducing inequalities.
“So to do this, we're working closely with a set of organisations who have invaluable knowledge, which they can share about engaging with our women. And this includes advisory panels, which are made up of influential figures from the Black and Asian Muslim communities. Shape and build group, consisting of representatives from a group of active partnerships, a Sport England cross-organisational panel, enabling us to align our work and work really closely with our system partners.
“And we will also be working collaboratively across our places and our partners. And to create the campaign, we have appointed a bespoke agency called the This Girl Can Collective. This is a multi-agency model bringing together a collection of specialists from diverse areas of expertise and leading the collective we have 23red, who are a purpose-driven creative agency that specialise in delivering behaviour change campaigns.
“We also have the House of Oddities, who are a creative agency where diversity of people and creative thinking are the core underpinning values. And we have MMC, who are audience experts who help organisations connect effectively with multicultural and lower income communities across the UK with the mission to reduce inequalities.”
A slide titled ‘Our strategy’ appears on screen, featuring a pregnant woman meditating during an outdoor yoga session.
Kate P continues: “And so over the next few slides, we will introduce our strategy and unpack some of the thinking and insight taken from our research, which were used to inform this strategy. And in truly collaborative style, to take you through this, I will hand you over to Sharon Jiggins, who's the Managing Partner from our agency, the This Girl Can Collective, and someone who has played a pivotal role in the campaign from its inception ten years ago. Over to you, Sharon.”
A slide titled ‘A plethora barriers exclude our women’ appears on screen as the minimised video switches to Sharon Jiggins, who talks through the text appearing in a table on the slide.
Sharon says: “Wonderful. Thank you. Kate. So our research has uncovered a plethora of barriers into why our women aren’t engaging in physical activity, as you saw in the video a little while ago. And we've listed a few of these here. So these are barriers that cannot simply be overcome through personal motivation alone.
“Now, some of these barriers are common among all women, such as the cost of taking part in exercise, the lack of local facilities, and the challenge of finding time amid conflicting priorities. However, there are some barriers uniquely experienced by certain groups, such as the lack of suitable provision. For instance, some women, including women from Asian Muslim communities, need female-only spaces, but there are not enough of these spaces around, and some of our Black women and Asian Muslim women talk to us about wanting to protect their hair when swimming. But standard swim caps simply are not designed for certain hair types.
“Or lack of information. Our pregnant women talked a lot about being unsure what activity was safe to do while pregnant, so avoided exercise altogether. And at a bigger societal level, our women feel underrepresented in exercise. They just didn't see women like them exercising. So in summary, our research demonstrated that our women are feeling excluded from participating in physical activity due to factors beyond their control.”
A slide featuring a photo of two women talking appears, alongside a quote that Sharon talks through.
Sharon continues: “And on the next slide, this quote from one of our ladies in the research beautifully sums up the challenge stopping our women. She said “I always thought I wasn't made for exercise, but it turns out exercise wasn't made for me.” And what she's articulating here is the feeling of exclusion. And this feeling of exclusion is real. All these barriers, some big and lots of small ones, all add up to our women feeling like they are excluded from the world of activity.”
A slide titled ‘Leading to an exclusion loop’ appears on screen, with Sharon talking through the circular diagram alongside it.
Sharon says: “And this leads to an exclusion loop. The reasons for feeling of exclusion are complex and societal, but when it comes to physical activity, our women feel excluded by their community, who feel excluded by society, so they self-exclude themselves from physical activity.
“So the role for This Girl Can is to break the exclusion loop. And we do that through belonging, because belonging creates an inclusion loop. And we're going to do this by making sure women feel included in society, by social norming, included by their community, by rallying the community to support them in getting active, and by shaping the system so they can include themselves in physical activity, by finding and accessing activities for them. And all this leads to our strategic proposition. We go into the next slide.”
A slide titled ‘Out strategic thought: Belonging starts with inclusion’ appears on screen, with Sharon talking through three points that appear in boxes beneath.
Sharon says: “Belonging starts with inclusion. So I'm just going to unpack these words briefly. So ‘belonging’: this is about getting all women to feel they are welcome in the world of physical activity. However they want to do it, on their terms. ‘Starts with’ is about the first step, because this is a journey that won't happen overnight, and ‘inclusion’ is about making the provision inclusive as well as their access to it. It's also about making sure everyone around our women and broader society plays a role in making our women feel they belong.
“So together, Belonging Starts With Inclusion is a strategy that seeks to reduce our women's barriers, that exclude them from physical activity by showing how women like them are getting active. And only when our women are seen, heard and included can they genuinely feel a sense of belonging within the world of physical activity.
“This strategy involves working closely with partners like you and community groups to shape the provision of activity, making it more accessible and inclusive for our women. And I'd like everyone on this call to remember a time you haven't felt included, whether that was in school or in a work or social situation. And think about, well, you know, what would have made a difference for you.
“So, for instance, we heard from one of our Asian Muslim women who said she had attended a ladies-only fitness class for the first time in a community hall. However, the hall had big windows where she would have been overlooked by men. She had to leave before the class even began. So, having made the big decision to attend a class she had never been to before, she was thwarted by the lack of blinds, something that no one had thought about. And this is just one example of many. But if we're able to solve some of these barriers for our women, this will benefit all women.
“Which is why we feel that as a strategic platform, Belonging Starts With Inclusion will work really hard for us.”
A slide titled ‘The role for communications’ appears on screen, again with three points in boxes that Sharon talks though.
Sharon continues: “And it gives us a very clear role for communications for the next phase of This Girl Can, which is to create a culture of openness so all women feel included in physical activity.
“There are three strands to this strategy. The first one is ‘Raise it’. So this is all about raising, voicing the need for change so all women can feel they belong. It's an insight-gathering phase among our women, surfacing the barriers to participation specific to them, and gleaning what motivations and support they need to get active. And these audience insights will be used to stimulate conversations and gain media coverage that demonstrates the importance of being inclusive. This phase sets the scene about why This Girl Can is needed now more than ever.
“‘Shape it’. Well, that's about working with you, our partners and supporters in the sector to build a more inclusive system. This will include packaging up the insights from our research to share with you, giving you the opportunity to hear more from our women about their wants and needs and what would make a big difference to them. We will also look to facilitate conversation, sharing best practices from those already working hard to be inclusive. And we've heard from you that it's always important to have more time to prepare for the launch of a campaign and to respond to any learnings, which is why we're speaking to you now, and we want to maintain open levels of communications from now until the launch of the next public-facing phase of This Girl Can, which will be next September.
“And this is the ‘Celebrate it’ phase, and this is all about championing and celebrating what belonging looks and feels like. This public-facing multimedia campaign will inspire and motivate our women to get active, generating additional business for you. So through broadcast media such as TV adverts and posters, we will increase representation. So our women feel one of many rather than one of few, rallying community support and galvanising society.
“And then through targeted media on a local community level, we will go where our women are, appearing in their spaces and places, and this phase will show our women, and indeed all women, that getting active is possible, motivating and welcoming for women and girls like them. This ‘Celebrate it’ phase will therefore be generating an increase in the number of women wanting to get active and using your services. So I'll now hand over to Amy, who will take you through the timings in more detail.”
A slide titled ‘Timeline’ appears on screen, with a graphic of a timeline that Amy Crees talks through, as her live video replaces Sharon’s to the side.
Amy says: “Thanks very much, Sharon. “So before I delve into the timeline, it's worth noting that this is actually the first time we've had funding secured over a four-year period, and what this allows us to do is plan much further ahead than we've previously been able to.
“And this is a real bonus for a couple of different reasons. So firstly, it gives us an opportunity to build momentum and really drive behaviour change over a more sustained period. Secondly, as Sharon said, we know from your feedback that giving you as much notice and lead time as possible really helps your planning. So we'll be sending regular communications to ensure you have clear sight of our plans and the time you need to capitalise on all the key moments we have planned for next year.
“So, starting from the left of the timeline at the purple Audience Research box, we start where we always do for This Girl Can, and that's with our women. Over the last few months, we've been undertaking further research to deepen our understanding and validate our key audience insights. These insights will underpin all campaign activity, and we'll want to share them far and wide with all of you, our partners and the influential voices who can support the next iteration of the campaign.
“Moving to the right. The campaign will celebrate its 10th anniversary on the 12th of January, and this is an important moment for us, not only to reflect on the impact the campaign has had to date, but also to thank everyone who has played a part, and that will be many of you, and to take a look forward to the work we still need to do.
“Following this, at the end of February, we'll have the start of our ‘Raise It’ phase in the red box when we'll be launching a big public-facing PR moment. Drawing on our insight to generate significant media coverage about the importance of being inclusive and to demonstrate why the next phase of This Girl Can is so needed.
“Soon after this in March we’ll be starting our ‘Shape it’ phase, where we'll be launching materials to share the insight generated by our research, as well as advice and guidance to any organisation looking to deliver inclusive opportunities for women. Along with these resources we’ll continue to communicate and collaborate with partners and the whole physical activity sector so you can capitalise on the campaign and help create the conditions for change.
“And then finally, in September is the start of our ‘Celebrate it’ when we will launch a heavyweight public-facing behaviour change campaign with advertising across major broadcast channels including TV, radio and out-of-home, as well as a targeted media plan which reaches our women in their communities, and on those channels and publications they trust and use in their everyday lives.
“So at this point, we want to give you the chance to hear from some organisations who are already doing an amazing job in helping to provide inclusive opportunities for women to get active. So I'll now hand over to Rakhee from MMC.”
A slide titled ‘Let’s hear from some organisations leading the way’ appears on screen, above thumbnail images of four of the guests previously introduced: Rakhee Shah, Yashmin Harun, Gina McCabe and Samin Mughal.
Rakhee says: “Thanks very much, Amy. And as you say, this is our opportunity to hear from a few organisations who are putting our women at the centre of their provision.
“We're delighted to welcome to the panel three inspirational women, Yashmin Harun, BEM, founder and chair of the Muslimah Sports Association, an organisation which offers women a safe and positive environment to participate in a number of different sports without compromising their religious or their cultural beliefs, a number of other prestigious positions, including Vice-Chair at London Football Association and Senior Independent Director of British Fencing.
“We're also joined by Gina McCabe, Outdoor Citizens Lead at the YHA. Gina is a leading thinker and practitioner in socially just solutions that really work to create a more equitable and inclusive outdoors. Through her consultancy, Gina is the lead for Outdoor Citizens, a free online and face-to-face community founded and hosted by YHA England and Wales, that centres the expertise and work of grassroots community groups at the heart of a more inclusive outdoors.
“And we're also joined by Samin Mughal, founder of Loughborough Female Fitness, a diverse and inclusive physical activity sports club for women of all ages, with a focus on youth and adult women of ethnic minority and Muslim faith groups. Samin also advises local government bodies, community organisations and active partnerships in creating inclusive, active environments. So Yashmin, Gina and Samin, thank you very much for joining us today. And welcome.”
At this point the slide is replaced by the full-screen view of the four guests in conversation.
Rakhee continues: “We've got a couple of areas of focus for today's panel discussion. The first question we had for you is how does your organisation support women in getting active, and what has the impact of this work been? And Yashmin, we’ll start with you.”
Yashmin says: “So MSA started over ten years ago, and it was because I identified a gap in the market actually, and funnily enough it was because I attended a This Girl Can session of badminton, and it was in the local town hall. And I went because it was a female-only session. But when I went, there were men walking through and I felt really conscious and I would stop every time a man walked through, I thought, this can't be right. I feel really uncomfortable.
“So what I did was I looked around to see what other activities were on offer for women, and I felt that I wasn't really comfortable joining those sessions. So I, started our own basketball activities, looked for a female coach and, it took a few months for it to get started, to get going. I had to engage the community, build that trusting relationship, because they didn't know what I was trying to achieve and what I was trying to do with those sessions.
“So I had to build a lot of trust and engage with a lot of the people within the community, but also the men, and bring them in as allies as well, because what I wanted to do was try and bring in exercise as a preventative measure rather than a reactive measure. So a lot of our women, what we tend to do is when we get ill or diagnosed with a disease such as diabetes or heart disease or arthritis or something, that's when we start thinking about exercising.
“And I wanted to build it into everyday lives, and we moved that sort of barrier of thinking it's not part of everyday life for women, especially from a Muslim background. And it started with basketball. And then eventually we started to get really, really good numbers in. So like 40 women coming every week. And then it grew into offering badminton and then from there we grew into offering football.
“And then I started to look at the workforce. And there weren’t as many women coaches out there either. So it limited the number of sports I could offer. And so I started working with national governing bodies, and especially the FA and Essex County FA, and talked about how we can tailor a programme that would engage the community, the females from the community, to do a tailored coaching course.
“So that increases representation and that would then increase the number of women that we were engaged in from the local community. And that took actually two years from inception to delivery. But we had 16 women come on that course, complete the course and get their FA level one badges. They started delivering in the local borough and then that grew our football provision as well.
“So now we have a football club. Everyone's on the football. Monday night we have over 100 women and girls coming to that session. Have a 5-a-side team. We have an under-14s team. We have a women's 11-a-side team. So we started to remove all those barriers. But it wasn't an easy journey. We had to change sort of the mindset of the women involved first, but also the community around us as well, because the men started to challenge us, started to ask questions about what are we trying to do here? What are we trying to achieve? Why are we trying to get women to exercise? What is our end goal here?
“So it was changing the narratives, but also then working with the national governing bodies to help them understand what our challenges were as a Muslim community, as well.”
Rakhee says: “Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that, Yashmin. What a journey. And so much in there for everybody to take away, from community engagement to, you know, upskilling women from the community to, you know, to working with the national governing bodies. It's really, really interesting, to hear the journey of the MSA.
“We're going to move right over to Gina now, so, Gina, we understand that Outdoor Citizen supports a more inclusive outdoors. It would be great to hear how the programme supports women, and what impact this work has had.”
Gina says: “Thank you, Rakhee. Thank you Yashmin for going first. I really appreciated that. So I want us to give a little bit more of a background on Outdoor Citizens as well. I'll keep it really, really short. And then tie it into the topic.
“So the idea of Outdoor Citizens was to make the outdoors more accessible for everyone. But to do that in a way that recognises that some parts of society have a lot more representation, a lot more influence, and a lot more voice in the outdoors. And that how the outdoors has traditionally been represented needs to change if it's going to be more inclusive and accessible. So we need to move away from that idea of, it has to be the top of a mountain if you're going to be sort of authentically out there having adventure.
“So I look after the Outdoor Citizens Network on behalf of YHA. It's got 120 organisational members, the majority of which are not-for-profit groups. It's also home to some partners, systemic partners we would call them, national governing bodies, national landscapes, brands and so on, who've got a role to play in overcoming some of those systemic barriers. Those ones that can't be overcome by motivation alone. Like you said earlier, Sharon.
“So my role is to look after the day-to-day delivery of Outdoor Citizens. So I'm the main point of contact for members. And this is a free network. So I kind of sit in between, the community members, and YHA and some of, like I say, some of those systemic partners.
“And I also consult and advise and support YHA so that they can keep hosting and resourcing the network. Because it's been quite a journey. And it's something they really want to keep on supporting for as long as they can. And obviously it's quite an unusual setup. Not something that we think, another, big organisation like YHA has taken on before.
“So lots and lots of learning. And the activity of Outdoor Citizens includes, funded face-to-face events and online events throughout the year. And these are needs-led. So the intention is to support Outdoor Citizens members in connecting them with financial resources, funding, with other organisations, with training, all with the intention of supporting them to continue to grow and carry on in their community offer. But also a little bit about lifting the value, the voices of some of those community groups, in the work that they're doing.
“So we move away from the idea that, the solution is held by big organisations when actually there's a huge amount of work happening in communities, which is happening regardless of what some of the big organisations were doing. And so there's an incredible opportunity in partnership there.
“So in terms of how it helps women get active, I just looked at the Outdoor Citizens membership profile, and 55% of the organisations are either solely run by women and women-focused or have a really strong women's element. So there's a need there that's being responded to by community groups that is nothing to do with YHA in the nicest possible way. You know, it's happening. It's happening already. But through Outdoor Citizens, there's been an opportunity to channel some helpful resources to those groups.
“And the flip side of that is the relationships that YHA have now got with these women's groups has authentically developed over the last couple of years. So a lot of my work is in inclusive practice, particularly business-to-business models and how businesses and organisations can develop their commitment to being more inclusive and accessible. And I think Outdoor Citizens is a real exemplar model of that.
“So two years down the line, YHA are now a strategic partner with Sport England. And one of the reasons they’re a strategic partner is that they'd already put that legwork in to saying, ‘we don't have the answers, but we know there's a load of groups that do, and we need to find a fair and equitable way to work with those groups so that they can carry on doing what they're doing.’ We can be helpful in the right way, and the spin-off of that is more women are coming to stay at YHA hostels. YHA are learning how better to serve some of those audiences. They're changing their practices because they're getting first-hand experience of, oh, we had a group come to stay and we didn't get X, Y, and Z, right. So now we need to change that and that's going to be better for future groups.
“So I think the relationship with how it supports women get active is YHA have never at any point tried to invent and design new activities totally off their own back that will support women. They recognise that that was already happening. And actually what they needed to do was create the channels for that to continue happening. And so that growth of women participating in outdoor activity, is aided by the work of Outdoor Citizens. But in such a way that it really respects what's happening in those communities. I think that’s it!”
Rakhee says: “Thank you, Gina, thank you for giving us that context and the understanding around the unique work that the Outdoor Citizens programme is doing.
“I think, we're really lucky to have Samin with us today. And Samin, it is a similar question for you. But there is a bit of a twist, and I think that, you know, what you're going to be able to really bring to the conversation is that kind of understanding of, you know, that kind of partnership that you've had with the Outdoor Citizens programme.
“So it'd be great to understand, first of all, how Loughborough Female Fitness supports women in getting active. And also, it would be really interesting for us to hear from you around the impact, that your partnership with the YHA has had on this work.”
Samin says: “Thank you. Thank you Rakhee. Thank you Yashmin and Gina. Hello, everyone. Yes. So, we set up, Loughborough Female Fitness was set up in May 2021. By simply, sort of, I invited a few friends around and said, I'm doing this. Are you with me? Are you on board? And it was recognising that we don't have many women-only activity spaces at all locally in our town. But also when they happened, it was sort of either very short-term, so it would be like a little pot of funding that comes up to support women specifically and it would be for two or three months and then everybody would get engaged, and then it would sort of stop and it was like, well, there's no funding available.
“But we also live in a university town. You will have heard of Loughborough University. So a lot of the university research projects did focus on women, but only for the extent of that study. So they would come out to the community and say, we need to work with Muslim women or South Asian women. And then the minute the study was done, there was no longer support that would continue with that work.
“Because I myself was in physical activity and public health research before this, I sort of recognised this specific need within our community, and I live locally, I knew that there wasn't much at all in women-only spaces. So we set up, we started, and it was a very simple sort of intention. It was like, we will lead a few walks and if you run some, that will hopefully do the job.
“But within a few months of starting, we recognised that the need and the demand of our women, is just huge. And, you know, at that point, even for me, I was listening to statistics that physical activity levels in Muslim women, in South Asian women is at the lowest levels. So even I had kind of been sold this idea that we don't want to do exercise and we're somehow, you know, not wanting to participate.
“But actually then I recognise that is incorrect. The minute you start building that connection and that trust, which was really crucial for us, and it was an interesting learning point for me personally because I live and work in Loughborough, but I kind of had to restart building that trust with the community in terms of being able to organise and lead and deliver physical activities within women-only spaces.
“So I recognised that actually, women had previously been told this is a women-only space, but then turn up and it's a male lifeguard, for example, or they're told it's a women-only space, but it's not at all sort of fulfilling the modesty sort of criteria, if you like, of Muslim women, for example. So you want to be in a private space where you're not overlooked, you know, when you're being active.
“So anyway, we started and I have to say that, you know, three and a half years on, we now still our main job is to deliver, plan and organise weekly activities, walks, runs, hikes, Boxfit cardio sessions, all sorts. So we do many different activities weekly. But we've also started working with local organisations to advise them. And I sit in on the Active Together EDI panel to try and advise them because they recognise that we're doing this work and we're doing it sort of, you know, quite well.
“So we now advise, we lead youth leadership programmes, which means we connect our youth with nature, and the outdoors, and we also have residentials, etc. But in terms of YHA, the biggest support that YHA – of course, Gina sort of shooting off those emails saying, ‘by the way, there’s funding available here,’ is brilliant. That's something we always need. So that's been excellent, but actually it's so much more than that.
“The biggest thing that is done for Loughborough Female Fitness, is that we've been able to connect with other organisations across England, who are doing similar sort of work. And that's been crucial for us to survive, actually, because when you're doing this work, and regardless of your previous expertise or experience or whatever, it's actually quite isolating and it's quite difficult sitting here behind a computer and trying to kind of tackle this huge, aspect of organising women-only spaces.
“So being able to go to the Outdoor Citizens event and being able to connect with other organisations that do similar sort of work has been crucial to us. to sort of see there are others that are doing similar work. And it also means that we have been able to sort of start connecting our women and our communities to those communities. We do some collaborations with other organisations, but we also shout out about it, like on social media. I'll say, ‘oh, by the way, look at this organisation. They may be in London, but they're doing something very similar to what we're doing.’ So it actually reduces that sense of isolation and that sense of we're the only ones, kind of, doing this work. So, yeah, it's been absolutely wonderful.”
Rakhee says: “Thank you Samin. Thank you so much for sharing. What an inspirational community that you've developed.
“So, there's so much in there from the three of you, to digest, to unpack and take away. I think one of the things that's really kind of stood out is that, you know, what we can achieve when we really step back and we we put our women at the centre of the approach. But also really kind of interesting insights coming out, you know, in terms of the importance of that community engagement, you know, the importance of kind of, you know, speaking to the to those in our surroundings, listening to our women.
“So, yeah. Thank you again for sharing those insights. And we're going to move on, to the next question now, which is advice-based. It's the same question for the whole panel. And the question is, what advice would you give to other organisations who are looking to provide more inclusive experiences? And we'll go in the same order. So Yashmin, if we're able to start with you, that would be great.”
Yashmin says: “For us, it was finding that individual that has impact in the community, so that community leader, and build that relationship. So what Samin was saying about trust is really important, so that they understand what your vision and mission is, but also if they have the contacts and network as well. So being able to build that trust is really important.
“And having the contacts within the community is also really important. So whether that's with your local community organisations or within the local mosques as well, but then also the active partners are really important because they're the ones who can give you access to the spaces that you need.
“The local schools are also really important because the majority of our sessions are delivered in schools. So building that trust about the kind of environment that you're looking for. So we can't have sessions where you're, got those open galleries or those big windows. So are they able to accommodate you and have blinds input so that, you know, you can close the blinds during your sessions and the caretaker isn't going to walk in and keep those activities really private for you.
“So understanding what it is that you're asking for, that you know, why it's so important as well. So that trust element is so important and understanding why, what it is that you're trying to achieve.”
Rakhee says: “Thanks, Yashmin. So, Gina, I'm going to move straight on to you. It's the same question, which is just around what advice would you give to other organisations looking to provide more inclusive experiences?”
Gina says: “Of course. Yeah. So, I've got a little, a little quote that I'd like to read out, which I think really summarises it quite beautifully. Because coming from an outdoor organisation background also, it's really easy to, kind of, think in this little silo that you need to keep changing what you're doing. And if you keep changing what you're doing, eventually people will come. And I think that's a mindset that's really, that's really challenging.
“And if we can switch how we think to considering where your organisation or your offer fits within a jigsaw, or within a slice of cake, or whatever you want to think of it, which piece of it are you that's going to somehow be a contribution towards accessing sport and physical activity, or accessing the outdoors? And the outdoors might be your service. It might be another service that kind of helps link women through to the overall picture.
“But this was shared. I'm going to try and anonymise it as I read it, by one of our Outdoor Citizens members. So there are 13 organisations or people that had a role in how somebody ended up coming to stay at a YHA hostel. So: ‘Funded by YHA, with hiking boots funded by Transport for Greater Manchester, and extra transport funded by the National Lottery ‘People for Our Planet’ project. Following my attendance at the Outdoor Citizens event last year and organised by YHA and all the elements which I heard of via Jenny Griggs of Natural England, who found out about my organisation via our health walks funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, which I heard about via a capacity building program by the Ubele Initiative. I got linked in with them via volunteering through a local organisation called Can GM, who I heard of via a Wigan community engagement project funded by People's Health Trust, which was shared with me via a woman I attended church with who was in a WhatsApp group that I started with a friend to connect African women in Wigan.’
“So I love it because it just illustrates the reality of, opening up access to sport and physical activity. I think if you are a provider, an activity provider, shift from, my advice is shift from thinking about your activity only and start to look around your community, around your offer, what's going on? What are the things that you can connect fairly and equitably with? Who can you partner with? And that's where your results will really come.”
Rakhee says: “Gina, thank you so much for sharing that. Really loved that, loved that quote. So much in there. And, I think it just summed up your point beautifully. Samin, similar question for you, really, but it would be, yeah, it'd be great if you were able to share your, kind of, one or two nuggets of advice.”
Samin says: “Thank you, Rakhee. Yes, absolutely. For me, it's still really, really connecting with your local community and recognising what is unique about your specific context. So I walked into this thinking, oh, well, I have a research experience and data collection experience in Leicester, etc., etc. but actually that might not apply at all. And in my case, in our case, it didn't, to the very specific context that the community and the challenges that the community in Loughborough faced, being a small town, you know, and all of the other elements in terms of when you're trying to book venues or find a woman instructor etc.
“And also really, really listening to your community. So again, I felt that I know my community, I know the challenges that we face. But actually, when you're out there, when you're listening to people that do want to become active, you recognise so many other elements that you hadn't considered.
“And the final one is, don't compare yourself to the big players in the field. We all sort of think to ourselves, oh, great, they have amazing social media following etc. But what suits the certain groups of people or certain ways will not suit you. For us, for example, we recognise that we will never be able to get our women to go hiking in the Peak District unless we actually sought out transport for them. It doesn't work for them to drive up together to, sort of, what is an unknown location for them, for example.
“So kind of recognise to listen to your communities and recognise what is unique about your community I think is the key.”
Rakhee says: “That's great. Thank you for sharing that, Samin. I think, between the three of you, we've really been able to glean some really useful and actionable insights, which I'm sure that many of our attendees will be delving further into. You know, everything from, you know, that, kind of, importance of building trust, really kind of honing down and thinking about, you know, what is the offer?
“Samin, I loved what you had to say about, you know, not comparing yourself to the big players. And, you know, just think about what it is that you offer and what's different for you.
“Unfortunately, we don't have time to cover some of the questions which have been coming through from the audience right now. But these will be answered in good time following today's webinar.
“So for now, I'd just like to say thank you again for joining us on stage. Thank you to Yashmin, to Samin and to Gina. It's been really, really wonderful and a real privilege to hear from the three of you. And I will hand over to Amy.”
A slide appears on screen titled ‘Making the most of the campaign’s impact’ alongside a photo of two women jogging and Amy’s minimised live video.
Amy says: “Thank you so much, Rakhee and all our panel members. So, so great to hear from you all. And so much food for thought for us all to take away.
“So, as you've heard, providing inclusive activity that's specifically designed for our women can have a huge impact, opening up sport and movement to women who previously just didn't feel like they belonged. And when we go live with our major national campaign in September, we believe the next burst of This Girl Can will help to drive demand amongst our women, leading to increased motivation amongst those who may not have engaged with physical activity before.
“And with many more women inspired to take part, there's a clear opportunity for all those providing activities for women to benefit from the interest. By providing inclusive activity, which enables our women to get active on their terms, your organisation can access new audiences and establish itself as an organisation that's truly meeting the needs of our women.
“So in the coming months, we'll be sharing more assets, resources, insights to help support all organisations on the journey to be more inclusive and amplifying the stories of organisations like the Muslimah Sports Association, Loughborough Fitness and the YHA who we've just heard from and who we can learn so much from. And I'm sure there are many more of you on this webinar.
“So moving into our final slide, there will be a whole range of ways for you to be part of the next chapter of This Girl Can. But in the first instance, here are the top three actions you can take now.”
A slide titled ‘How you can be part of the next chapter’ appears on screen, alongside a photo of a woman holding a photo. Amy talks through the bullet points.
Amy says: “So the first of these is, to sign up to the campaign hub and newsletter at thisgirlcan.co.uk/campaign-hub. This is the B2B part of our This Girl Can website, and it's the best way to get further updates on all our upcoming activity and how you can get involved.
“Number two is to help spread the word by sharing this deck and the link to the recording of this webinar with colleagues and partners. Please look out for these next week in our follow-up email and on our social channels.
“And finally, please share your feedback by completing our short survey. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's webinar and our plans for next year. And we'll be dropping a link to a survey in the chat. Please do complete this if you have time as your feedback is hugely valuable to us. I'm now going to pass back to Kate to wrap up.”
A slide titled ‘Thank you’ appears on screen, alongside a photo of woman using a hula hoop in her kitchen and the website and email address of This Girl Can: thisgirlcan.co.uk/campaign-hub and [email protected]. Kate Dale’s minimised video also appears.
Kate D says: “Thank you, Amy, and thank you to all our brilliant speakers. I am inspired and daunted and excited about the challenge ahead if we really are to make a difference.
“And thank you to all for staying with us throughout this. I think, there are so many things that come to mind. I think the real words that come out around importance of connection, around community, around building trust, around using the collateral that we have. And I love that example that Gina gave, because I think one thing I've learned, there’s many things I've learned over the last ten years, but I think that one of women's superpowers is not just the ability to talk and connect, but to share our vulnerabilities and to ask questions and share what we don't know and find those connections.
“And that's what we all need to do. Ourselves included, if we are to really take This Girl Can to the next level, which is what we're really committed to doing. So please share with us your questions, your comments, your feedback. There's quite a lot of this that we're still figuring it out, particularly how we connect all of us together. You know, over the last ten years, I've been asked numerous times, what do women want? Well, it depends which women you ask. And I think that's something that's really come through today.
“So the importance of truly, truly, truly putting the women you're trying to reach at the centre of what you're doing, are talking to them and listening to what they say, and responding to them is absolutely critical. It has been an incredible ten years. I think one of our team members’ son was just starting school when we launched This Girl Can, he's now doing his GCSEs. So it's been quite a journey. But that means that he's just growing up, right? So it's a campaign that is maybe just growing up as well.
“We've got so much left to do and really looking forward to working with you all on it. We are going to answer and respond to your questions and comments when we share the link, next week. So please do keep putting them in there. Don't forget to do the survey. And I think there's a space in there for questions as well if something occurs to you afterwards. Or you can always email us on [email protected] too.
“Please stay in touch. Please keep talking. Oh, and there was one question very quickly. Sorry, I had a big finish then and I've just ruined it. Around using the logo – absolutely. If you sign up to This Girl Can support you can get all the details on how you can do lock-up logos with This Girl Can. That's a really important part of using our collateral on your materials as well to really reach the women we want to reach.
“But yeah, thank you, all of you, for working with us so far. And here's to the next ten years!”
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