Highlighting Sporting Equals Project: Sweaty Betty Foundation

The Flowhesion Foundation Working with Sporting Equals in the Girls Powered Project

At the Flowhesion Foundation, we are passionate about community cohesion. Being part of the Girls Powered project has helped us to engage with girls from ethnically diverse communities. It has given the girls access to sporting activities that were not necessarily available to them previously. We have been able to provide a fun, happy, and safe environment for our young girls whilst also promoting fitness.

We have built a little family where everyone looks forward to the sessions on Saturdays. Initially, we started with Rounders and then moved on to Netball, with the hope of moving on to Boxing, as the girls have shown great interest in this sport.

Being part of this project and the funding provided has enabled us to allow the girls to choose the activities they would like to try. The funding itself is a major help as we found the cost was a factor that was preventing most of our girls from participating in sports outside of school because most do come from low-income families. This has helped strengthen our relationship with the parents who have become a source of encouragement for this project. We even had a session where the mums joined us. This was a very fun day where the girls were able to play alongside the mums and witness their competitive side.

Marie Cartwright (Regional Manager North) from Sporting Equals has been a tremendous help with delivering this project. She has always gone over and beyond to help bring this project to life. During the early stages, we had a slight dip in attendance from the girls. I spoke to Marie about this after feeling slightly deflated. Her words of encouragement and advice are why we are still able to see this project flourish. She has tried her best to help the organisations involved build a better support network where we can help each other out e.g. if someone is looking for a netball coach, we are now able to ask others involved for recommendations.

We at Flowhesion are very grateful to be part of this project and would like to thank Sporting Equals, Sweaty Betty Foundation, and especially Marie for giving us this opportunity.