Are we making it harder for some people to be active?

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion is a hot topic in the physical activity sector, in a way that it hasn’t ever been before. For a long time, the sector predominantly considered EDI with a one-dimension-at-a-time lens despite the complexity of tackling inequalities that are often interlinked and institutionally embedded.

We don’t ask the title question enough, if at all. By failing to ask this question, we risk creating things that make it easier for one group to engage at the expense of another.

It only appeared sporadically on my mental checklist after a rather excellent guest speaker on inclusion in built environments presented at the House of Sport and began telling a story about toilets and gender. A company she’d been working with, had decided to make all its toilets and changing spaces gender-neutral. Progressive thinking at the time. However, toilets that are indiscriminately used by male, female, and non-binary individuals become unusable by women from some religious and ethnic backgrounds. By failing to consider all people, a positive action becomes exclusionary to others.

The challenge with EDI is that we don’t want to offend. We don’t want to say the wrong things or take the wrong action. That can mean we do nothing. I can’t do nothing, I can’t read the reports on racism, poverty, deprivation, disability, gender, or ethnicity and not want to create positive changes to how things work.

As someone who faces very little discrimination, I have learned through failure. Most of that was my missteps but some experience was gained through others being generous and sharing their mistakes so we may all learn. It’s in that spirit that I write this blog.

My first EDI mistake was cultural. It was 12 years ago when I put a weekly football pay and play coaching session in at Botwell Green sports centre in Hayes.

• No-one came.
• No-one came the next week.
• Or the next.

I'd done my research; football was being asked for and yet football was not being attended. Hayes is 3 miles from Heathrow and has a huge ethnically diverse population. After digging about and talking to the residents at the YMCA, pupils from the local schools and contacts within the Mosque and Hayes Town Partnership I was alerted to the simple truth that no group was sure they were allowed to go. As one 16-year-old said, “Is it for my Somalian community or the other Somalians?" A different style of session was necessary to create a space that could safely cater to all groups and thus a facilitated, weekly 5-a-side league was born.

EDI mistake number 2: We’re all here for the same reason and number 3: Research is insufficient in isolation.

Research tells us that different motivations and values are attributed to why people make certain choices and yet physical activity often provides activities as if everyone attending wants the same outcome e.g. to be the best [INSERT SPORT HERE] participant they can be. Where real reasons can be as simple as it’s the nearest thing to my house and I’m only free Tuesdays so this is all I can attend.

When Understanding Women’s Lives (2017) from Women in Sport and Youth Insight: Under the Skin from Sport England came out there was clear research showing the need for adaptive delivery to create positive experiences that met varying needs.

However, in my experience community clubs, leisure trusts, volunteers and coaches lack the time and motivation to read, interpret and implement the findings without assistance. How an Active Partnership helps providers meet needs is crucial, and the work of the Satellite Club programme at London Sport shifted provision to increase engagement of people with disabilities from 6% to 17%, and participants from ethnically diverse communities from 23% to 65%. Working with trusted partners, providing training, toolkits, and resources and embedding youth voice were all key and the Impact Report as a how-to guide is worth a read.

EDI mistake number 4: Single Player Game.

I have worked for companies where EDI is the remit of one member of staff and seen that be the excuse, we all gave to not think about EDI in our work. I have worked for places where EDI is considered once at the beginning and never thought about it again. Both these approaches incubate inequality and exclusion.

You can’t personally experience all versions of inequality, there is always some state in which you have privilege over someone else. Therefore, we have to bring in the widest possible knowledge and review our approach to be sure it is making a difference.

When I had the luck to work with the Muslimah Sports Association, Essex FA and Redbridge Council to support local Muslim women to train as football coaches so they could provide opportunities for women and girls to play football it would have been easy to just stump up the money and be frustrated that they couldn’t find a course to attend (what had always happened before).

However, as a collaborative we agreed to do it differently, to understand the complexities and address them. They were cultural, religious, family, work, travel, and safety, and each of those challenges showed up as we progressed. It took 18 months and 2 false starts of the course to get it completed but what we learnt shaped all of us and how we work with others now.

EDI mistake number 5: If nobody speaks of remarkable things…

One of my bugbears about inclusion is that most of what we do is behind the scenes so how would anyone know? Why should someone have to ask if there's parking, if toilets are non-binary if baby changing is in both male and female spaces? How would a candidate know you have recruitment practices that reduce discrimination across education, income, English language skills, ethnicity, gender, and age? How would a carer of someone with dementia know the leisure centre is dementia friendly? We never seem to share the important things that are us showing up as allies to others.

There is no perfect solution to equality, diversity, and inclusion. There is always a risk that one part of our community will be adversely affected by a change that is fundamentally positive to other parts of the collective, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying.

And when we try, we must talk about it – successful or unsuccessful - so we can all learn.